Fairfax, VA -(AmmoLand.com)- In 2013, the Los Angeles City Council proposed an ordinance declaring magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition (so-called “large-capacity magazines”) a “public nuisance” subject to confiscation and destruction.

Though not directly prohibiting their possession, the initial proposal’s ultimate objective was to remove currently legal magazines from the hands of countless Los Angeles gun owners. Emboldened by recent moves to flatly ban the possession of such magazines in San Francisco and Sunnyvale, however, Los Angeles City Attorney presented an amended ordinance in June 2014, banning “large-capacity magazines” within city limits and criminalizing the transportation of such magazines through the city.

The amended ordinance will not prevent violent crime or mass shootings, but it does sadly limit the Second Amendment right of law-abiding gun owners to choose to use these magazines to defend themselves and their families. As most gun owners already know, magazines holding more than 10 rounds are standard equipment for many popular pistols and rifles. And they are possessed by millions of law-abiding Americans for a variety of lawful purposes, including self-defense. The City of Los Angeles’ magazine prohibition affects lawful gun owners’ ability to defend themselves, especially in situations potentially requiring more than 10 shots.

Unfortunately, on Tuesday, July 28, 2015, the City Council voted unanimously to adopt the amended, yet still useless, version and to send it to the Mayor for his approval, which the Mayor has indicated he is eager to do.

Please contact Mayor Garcetti TODAY urging him NOT to sign this unproductive ordinance into law.

Email the Mayor at mayor.garcetti@lacity.org and/or call the Mayor at (213) 978-0600.

If the ordinance is signed into law, people who currently possess magazines over 10 rounds will have a 60-day grace period to transfer those magazines in accordance with state law, remove them from the city, or turn them over to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Because this ordinance does not provide an exemption for self-defense, you should carefully consider your best alternative options.

What Is Considered a “Large Capacity Magazine”

Los Angeles’ definition of a “large-capacity magazine” is identical to that found in California Penal Code section 16740. This includes any ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.There are three notable exceptions:

1) Any feeding device that has been permanently altered so that it cannot hold more than 10 rounds;

2) Any .22 caliber tube ammunition feeding device; and

3) Any tubular magazine that is contained in a lever-action firearm.

This definition is applicable whether the magazine is assembled or disassembled. There are also several uses and categories of individuals that are exempt from the magazine ban. Those exemptions can be viewed here (page 6).

You may store your magazines outside of Los Angeles. Be aware, however, that storing your magazines with friends or family outside of Los Angeles may qualify as an “unlawful transfer” under state law.

Help Stop These Laws from Passing in Other Jurisdictions

The anti-Second Amendment crowd has made clear its intention to continue pushing anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s agenda throughout California. Sunnyvale’s Mayor claims that residents from several neighboring cities, including Mountain View and Los Altos, have already reached out to him to push the same or similar measures in their cities. Former state Assemblywoman Sally Lieber claims the campaign for gun control in Mountain View has already begun. And with Los Angeles taking this bold step, it is becoming even more likely that other California cities will follow suit.

You can assist in the fight to defend gun owners’ rights in California courts by donating to the NRA Legal Action Project today. For a summary of some of the many actions the NRA has taken on behalf of California gun owners, including the tremendous recent victory in the Peruta case, click here.

About the NRA-ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Did an armed serviceman deliver the killing bullet that stopped the Chattanooga terrorist gunman?

Pratt discusses this and other questions such as: Have there been would-be massacres that were stopped by armed civilians; what are the chances (and the strategy) for passing legislation to repeal gun free zones; and how will the gun issue affect the presidential race?

About: Gun Owners of America (GOA) is a non-profit lobbying organization formed in 1975 to preserve and defend the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. GOA sees firearms ownership as a freedom issue. `The only no comprise gun lobby in Washington’ – Ron Paul Visit: www.gunowners.org to Join.

In an email to OFF, the McMinnville City Attorney said “We discussed that our police officers could not walk up to someone openly carrying and demand that they show whether the gun was loaded or not unless there were (sic) probable cause. We discussed that, if someone wanted to, s/he could simply keep walking and not engage with an officer at all.”

She also said “While I would not say there’s been an “issue” with people carrying in our parks, I would say that the incidents are increasing and that interest in the subject is increasing.”

CHL holders are not affected and non chl holders can open carry if unloaded, and police have no authority to determine if guns are loaded or not. So really, what was the point?

It seems McMinnville is hoping to become the new “go to” location for open carry protesters.

Contact info for the City Council can be found here or see the webpage version of this alert.

About:
The Oregon Firearms Federation has proven itself to be Oregon’s only no compromise lobbying group, OFF takes the same tough stands and serves as a vehicle for educating gun owners, promoting their rights and when necessary, fighting the freedom haters in court. Visit: www.oregonfirearms.org

Conservatives have long decried the left’s feigned concern “for the children” while it pursues an agenda that is wrecking their future, from Social Security and other budget-busting entitlements to the undermining of our national security. But no one has devoted a book to turning this meme on its head and cogently proving the statists guilty of that which they falsely accuse others.

There’s a big difference between the left’s invoking “the children” and Levin’s doing so, for leftists only do it to obscure policy issues they can’t argue on the merits. Levin mentions the children NOT to divert you from logical thinking but to coax you into it.

Universally, parents strive to give their children better opportunities than they had. Today, however, the situation is — shockingly — reversed. The current generation, at the behest of the statist political class and its enablers, is living on the backs of its children in the cynical name of safeguarding their interests. Those in this generation are mortgaging their children’s future to make their own lives more comfortable.

Statist defenders of the status quo will protest that these are outrageous charges and that they are trying to improve everyone’s life, including those in the rising generation. But the stubborn facts belie their claims. When anyone brings up these subjects, they either change the channel or start their familiar fearmongering and scapegoating — anything to avoid a fair examination of the issues.

Levin’s book is precisely what the nation needs to force a public discussion of these issues and to keep statists’ hands off the remote. Levin is uniquely suited to call our attention to the horrifying facts because 1) he makes the complex understandable; 2) people read his books; 3) he meticulously documents every position he takes; 4) he understands statists’ motivations; 5) he has the credibility to sound another national warning; 6) no matter how dire our circumstances appear, he refuses to accept defeat; and 7) unlike so many other critics, he offers concrete, practical and realistic solutions.

Anyone remotely attuned to current events knows that the United States is racing toward Greek-level insolvency. He knows our national debt exceeds $18 trillion. But does he know this figure is vastly understated, as Levin demonstrates? Does he realize that our government’s unfunded liabilities are about $100 trillion and that if we don’t make structural adjustments to our smorgasbord of “entitlement” programs, they will consume 100 percent of tax revenues by 2039 — conservatively estimated?

Everyone should know these things, yet people seem to assume there’s no need for panic because our ruling class isn’t concerned.

Dream on. Leftists are not about to join us and will continue to slander everyone who sounds the alarm. That’s why Levin’s book is so necessary and so timely.

I have long understood that Social Security and Medicare are upside-down, but after reading Levin’s book, I know exactly why. I now have all the facts and figures at my fingertips, unpleasant as they are. Levin deals with one devastating issue per chapter: the debt, Social Security, education, immigration, the environment, the minimum wage, national security and the Constitution. He documents how the statists are destroying this nation — and our children’s future — in all these categories.

I admit that Mark Levin is my good friend, but it honestly amazes me how, in a relatively short book, he can present power-packed information on all these critical issues as thoroughly as the densest textbook yet in a style as readable and riveting as any best-selling novel.

This book is a one-stop shop on the vital issues that our generation must address. As Levin points out, ultimately these are more than economic and national security issues. They are moral issues. We have a moral obligation to place these matters on the front burner, no matter how deceptively distant they may seem to us now and regardless of what kind of heat we take.

Don’t give the statists the benefit of the doubt, for they have to know what they are doing. The numbers do not lie, and Levin provides all the numbers in this book. This is purely a matter of plunder by deceit.

Despite how ominous all this sounds, we can make the necessary changes to turn this ship around. God bless Mark Levin for once again warning the nation and providing us a way out of this nightmare.

]]>http://www.ammoland.com/2015/07/plunder-and-deceit/feed/4Nazi-ChildrenNazi ChildrenDavid-LimbaughDavid LimbaughPlunder-and-DeceitPlunder and Deceit: Big Government's Exploitation of Young People and the FutureNow the Turks Are All Inhttp://www.ammoland.com/2015/07/now-the-turks-are-all-in/
http://www.ammoland.com/2015/07/now-the-turks-are-all-in/#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 23:27:16 +0000http://www.ammoland.com/?p=227305Recep Tayyip ErdoğanPat Buchanan

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- All through the Cold War, the Turks were among America’s most reliable allies.

After World War II, when Stalin encroached upon Turkey and Greece, Harry Truman came to the rescue. Turkey reciprocated by sending thousands of troops to fight alongside our GIs in Korea.

Turkey joined NATO and let the U.S. station Jupiter missiles in their country. When JFK secretly traded away the Jupiters for removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba, the Turks went along.

Early this century, under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey seemed to be emerging as a major power, a land bridge between Europe and the Islamic world, a friend to its neighbors, and future member of the EU.

But, recently, a U.S. diplomat blurted, “The Turks are out of their lane!”

And that describes the situation succinctly and well.

When rebels rose up to overthrow Bashar Assad in Syria, and Assad elected to fight not quit, Erdogan turned on him and began to permit jihadists to enter Syria.

When ISIS terrorists seized Raqqa in Syria, and Mosul and Anbar in Iraq, Erdogan refused to let U.S. planes based at Incirlik bomb them.

When America supported Syrian Kurds with air power, enabling them to hold off an ISIS attack on Kobani on the Syria-Turkish border, Erdogan denounced the Kurds as the greater threat.

But 10 days ago came an ISIS atrocity in Suruc, Turkey, just north of Kobani. Thirty-two young Turkish Kurds who were planning to help rebuild Kobani were massacred, and a hundred wounded.

Instantly, Erdogan permitted U.S. planes at Incirlik to attack ISIS targets in Syria and launched air strikes himself.

It appeared that, at long last, the U.S. and Turkey were again on the same page, seeing ISIS as the primary enemy, and acting jointly against it.

But the Turkish attacks on ISIS proved to be pinpricks. And the Turks began a major air assault on Kurdish forces in exile in Iraq, the PKK, who had fled Turkey after the recent civil war.

Where does this leave Turkey today?

Erdogan demands that Assad be overthrown. He has declared war on ISIS. He has broken off peace talks with the PKK in Turkey. He is attacking the exiled Kurds in the mountains of Iraq, enraging Baghdad, and his own Kurdish minority of 14 million.

He has been vilifying his former Israeli friends since the Mavi Marmara incident, where eight Turkish aid workers on a relief ship headed for Gaza were killed by Israeli commandos in 2010.

The Washington Times reports that Egypt is charging Turkey with sending agents to work with Islamic State on the Sinai Peninsula, which has been killing Egyptian soldiers and firing rockets into Israel.

There has been bad blood between Cairo and Ankara since Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, was overthrown by the army of Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in 2013. Gen. el-Sissi is now President el-Sissi and President Morsi is now on death row.

What is Erdogan up to? With his attacks on the Kurds and ISIS both, he is inviting blowback in the form of terrorist reprisals from ISIS and the PKK inside his own country, as happened at Suruc.

The speculation is that Erdogan is going to war for political reasons. When a Kurdish Party captured 13 percent of the vote in the June 7 elections, it broke Erdogan’s parliamentary majority, blocking his path to the presidential republic of his dreams and designs.

Critics believe he is provoking conflict with the Kurds before new elections, so he can cast himself as a fearless warrior against Arab terrorists and Kurdish traitors, discredit the small Kurdish party, and capture a sufficient majority to create his all-powerful presidency.

Turkey’s actions demonstrate, as do those of other allies in the region, that their enemies are not always our enemies, and that, as they single-mindedly pursue their national goals, so should we.

The Iraqi Kurds have been friends of the United States since Desert Storm. The Syrian Kurds, the YPG, have provided fighting troops whom we have supported with air power against ISIS. Both are de facto allies, no matter what the Turks say.

As for the PKK, we may have designated them a terrorist organization at the urging of the Turks, but if they are not attacking us, we ought not to be attacking them.

We must stop allowing our friends to choose our enemies in the Middle East. We are fully capable of doing that ourselves, without their assistance.

All our allies in that most war-torn of regions would like us to come fight their battles for them. We should let them fight their wars themselves, for the prospect of peace any time soon in that blood-soaked region is more than remote.

Our enemies are al-Qaida, which slaughtered 3,000 of our people, and its progeny. Our enemies are ISIS, which has beheaded Americans, and threatens us, our allies and friends.

President Obama and his top health officials have one last-ditch response left: Quick, hide behind the imaginary mammogram machine!

As more graphic, money-grubbing undercover videos of Planned Parenthood’s for-profit aborted baby parts racket emerge thanks to the investigative work of the Center for Medical Progress, desperate Democrats are in full deflection mode. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell defended federal funding for Planned Parenthood this week by invoking the women’s health shield.

“What I think is important is that our HHS funding is focused on issues of preventative care for women, things like mammograms,” Burwell told the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Just one teeny, tiny problem with this defense: It’s a completely calculated fabrication.

The breast-cancer screening charade casts Planned Parenthood as a life-saving provider of vital health services unavailable anywhere else. You may recall that during the 2012 presidential cycle, Obama himself falsely claimed during a debate that the abortion provider administers mammograms to “millions” of women — and liberal CNN moderator Candy Crowley let him get away with it.

On cue, Hollywood activists Scarlett Johansson, Eva Longoria and Kerry Washington all attacked the GOP ticket for wanting to “end” funding for “cancer screenings” by cutting off government subsidies for Planned Parenthood’s bloody billion-dollar abortion business. The celebrities in the White House and Tinseltown took their script straight from Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, who purported to speak for countless women for whom Planned Parenthood is “the only way” they can gain access to mammograms. (If the name sounds familiar, Nucatola is the same wine-swishing Josephine Mengele who was exposed on tape by the Center for Medical Progress two weeks ago lolling through a business lunch negotiating payments for aborted baby parts.)

Once again, it was undercover pro-life journalists who unmasked the truth.

An investigation of 30 Planned Parenthood clinics in 27 different states, conducted by pro-life group Live Action, confirmed that the abortion provider does not perform breast-cancer screenings. “We don’t provide those services whatsoever,” a staffer at Planned Parenthood of Arizona confessed on tape.

Even the liberal Washington Post doled out a three (out of four) Pinocchio rating for the White House’s mammogram lies.

“The problem here is that Planned Parenthood does not perform mammograms or even possess the necessary equipment to do so,” the paper’s resident fact-checker reported. “As such, the organization certainly does not ‘provide’ mammograms in the strict sense. Instead, its clinics provide referrals and direct low-income women toward resources to help pay for the procedure. These services are by no means unique to Planned Parenthood. In fact, the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the American Cancer Society provide them, as well.”

As I’ve pointed out previously, Planned Parenthood’s purported “referral services” to outside mammogram facilities are negligible — especially given the widespread availability of these and other free and low-cost breast and cervical cancer screening services across the country supported by both private and public grants.

Reluctant to do its job and just call out the president as an outright liar, The Washington Post fell short of giving Obama the full four-Pinocchio treatment for his Planned Parenthood mammogram propagandizing, but acknowledged that he has repeated the lies “too many times in one form or another for this to be considered just playing with words to generate a misleading impression.”

The Obama HHS apparently needs to be reminded of its own review exposing the mammography deception. In June 2012, the agency responded to a request for information about how many Planned Parenthood clinics were certified to operate mammogram facilities. “Our search did not find any documents pertinent to your request,” HHS told the Alliance Defense Fund.

Zip. Zilch. None. Nada.

Pro-life investigative journalist Lila Rose of Live Action has it right: “It is an alarming dereliction of duty that the Secretary of Health and Human Services refuses to view investigative reports that clearly demonstrate that Planned Parenthood, who receives close to half a million taxpayer dollars a year from the federal government, is engaged in the selling and trafficking of aborted baby body parts for profit,” she said this week. “Ms. Burwell should be investigating Planned Parenthood, not covering for them.”

Ladies, open your eyes and hearts. Watch the videos for yourselves.

Get the facts. Unmask the lies. The cackling profiteers of Planned Parenthood don’t care about your breasts. They’re too busy putting price tags on the baby hearts, livers, lungs and limbs swirling around in bloody pie plates, stacked in their “research” labs, subsidized with your tax dollars and sold to the highest bidders. For “preventative care,” of course.

USA –-(Ammoland.com)- Somewhere, everyday in the USA, 2100+ people use a gun for self defense, to stop a crime or save the lives of themselves or their family.

“We believe that the American public deserve to understand that on the average, guns save 2,191 lives and are used to thwart crimes every day,” says Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation

Most times you won’t see these tales on the news as it does not fit the main stream media’s story line of “Guns and Gun Owners are Bad“.

This is just one of those stories;

Rami Murrar, owner of Bouchard’s clothing store in Milwaukee, Wisc., was tending to his establishment when at around 4 a.m. a van smashed into the security doors and concrete posts protecting his store. A daring organized heist; after the van broke through the doors, three armed men attempted to gain access to the store.

Murrar responded to the threat by retrieving a semi-automatic rifle and firing at the armed intruders, striking one and causing all to flee. A short time later police caught up with one of the suspected robbers at a local hospital.

Following the incident, Murrar told a local news outlet, “It was a lot of guys out there. So I believe if they would’ve gotten through that door, I would’ve been dead, so that’s the reason I reached for my gun.”

Despite his successful experience with armed self-defense, Murrar made clear he did not relish the position he was placed in and showed mercy towards his attackers, stating, “I’m glad the guy made it. Again, I didn’t come to work that night or that day to kill somebody, so I hope he recovers from what happened, and he learns a lesson and be a good message for all the young guys out there.”

About the Guns Save Lives Series:
Every few days AmmoLand Shooting Sports News will be featuring a new report of stories involving self defense with a hand gun. Be sure and share, like and Tweet these posts and help spread the truth that “Guns Save Lives”. See more at www.AmmoLand.com ( http://tiny.cc/s6ef2w )

Washington DC – -(Ammoland.com)- When gun scholar John Lott met Barack Obama for the first time in 1996, he said Obama told him, “I don’t believe that people should be able to own guns.”

Lott and Obama were both at the University of Chicago Law School “where Obama was a part-time lecturer” when the future president reportedly made that statement.

And as Lott points out on PolitZette, the statement really encapsulates the way Obama has conducted himself in political office.

For example:

During his time in Illinois state politics, Obama supported a “ban [on] the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns,” a “ban [on] the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons.” He was on the board of directors of the left-wing Joyce Foundation, which funded such anti-gun groups as the Violence Policy Center, the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, and Handgun Free America.

Human Events reported on a 1995 candidate questionnaire Obama filled out to run for office in Illinois. In that questionnaire, Obama supported “waiting periods” to buy a gun. That means a woman who goes to the gun store to get a gun because she is being pursued by a predator cannot leave the store with the gun that same day, but must wait three, five, or ten business days before she can return and pick up the gun and take it home.

Fox News reported that on another questionnaire—this one in 1998—Obama said he wanted to “ban the sale or transfer of all sorts of semi-automatic weapons.” During this same time period, Obama also spoke of his opposition to concealed carry, which he believed “creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations.”

In 2003, Obama stood by laws—then present in certain areas of Chicago—which banned the use of handguns for self-defense.

Human Events reported that Obama took this stand over a case in Wilmette, Illinois, where a citizen used a handgun in self-defense. The man was under attack and killed the attacker. And while the killing was in self-defense, the innocent man faced jail time because he used a handgun to stop the attack. Numerous Illinois lawmakers realized that such a charge was illogical and began the process of changing the law to allow the use of a handgun when one’s life or the lives of one’s family were in danger.

Guess who opposed the change—Obama. He opposed it not just once, but numerous times.

Since December 2012, Obama has left no question regarding his desire to restrict Second Amendment rights as much as possible. He has supported “assault weapons” bans, magazine capacity bans, universal background checks, a ban on certain types of .5.56 ammo for AR-15s, and the complete forfeiture of Second Amendment rights for Social Security beneficiaries who cannot manage their own fiances.

Most recently, Breitbart News reported Obama’s suggestion that guns pose a greater threat than terrorism. He coupled this suggestion with a promise that he is going to do all he can to secure more gun control before his last 18 months in office are past.

This all makes sense if you “don’t believe that people should be able to own guns.”

Illinois –-(Ammoland.com)- This week Martin O’Malley, Democrat Presidential wannabe, has called for an “assault weapons” ban and a national gun registry.

Don’t worry about O’Malley because he is unlikely to be nominated.

However, if any of the Democrat Presidential candidates (Clinton, O’Malley, Sanders, or a candidate yet unnamed) are nominated, they will all push for what O’Malley has just enunciated.

From time to time I have growled about the impossible rules of engagement foisted on our troops by politicians. These stupid rules handcuff our soldiers and get many of them killed or wounded. I recently came across an account of the United States Marines at the Battle of Belleau Wood during World War I.

The Marines emphasized marksmanship far more that the United States Army because they were fewer in number and had to make every shot count.

In June 1918 Russia was out of World War I. This freed 50 German divisions who were sent to the Western Front. The plan was simple. March toward Paris and simply crush all opposition. If Paris could be taken, the war would end in a German victory. The Germans didn’t think much of the American troops who stood in their way and they knew the French would retreat as soon as the Germans appeared. In Belleau Wood there were about 15,000 French troops on the left flank of American Marines. Thousands of Germans marched on the American and French positions. The French immediately called for retreat as if on queue.

The American Marines drew a line in the sand; they weren’t going anywhere. The Marines were armed with the most accurate battle rifle in the world, the 1903 Springfield.

The British had criticized the 1903 Springfield and called it a target rifle, not a battle rifle. That would soon change.

American Marines World War One ~ “They killed everything that moved.”

The Germans marched on the American position in perfect order. The Marines began firing at them when they were hundreds of yards away. When the Germans got within 300 yards, nearly every Marine shot brought down a German soldier. The French and Germans were astonished by the Marine’s marksmanship.

The battle lasted a long time but the Marine’s marksmanship and fighting spirit broke the German advance. Paris was saved and World War I changed course in favor of the Allies.

A German General complained that the Marines used knives, revolvers, rifle butts, and bayonets on the German troops.

A letter written by a German soldier was found on the battlefield, in which he complained, “They killed everything that moved.”

And there you have the rules of engagement which we should give our soldiers.

Utah Classes

We are planning on expanding the number and type of courses the ISRA will be offering, beginning in December 2015. We will teach the Utah Classes at both the ISRA Range and in Chatsworth. The cost will be $50 for ISRA members and $80 for non-ISRA members. You will need to make your reservation and pay for the classes in advance. Class size is limited so you will need to make your reservations as soon as possible. We will need your FOID number and your ICCL number, if you have an ICCL. You may call the ISRA office at 815.635.3198 between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to make your reservations. You may also email mary@isra.org and she will mail you the proper forms. The dates are as following:

ISRA Range – December 12, 2015, January 9, 2016 and February 13, 2016.

Chatsworth – December 13, 2015, January 10, 2016 and February 14, 2016.

Thanks for being a member.

If you are not an ISRA member and this is being forwarded to you, join today.

About:
The ISRA is the state’s leading advocate of safe, lawful and responsible firearms ownership. Since 1903, the ISRA has represented the interests of over 1.5 million law-abiding Illinois firearm owners Visit: www.isra.org

Los Angeles, CA – -(Ammoland.com)- It’s the most far-reaching scandal in Washington that no one wants to talk about: Tens of millions of federal employees had their personal information hacked as a result of Obama administration incompetence and political favoritism.

Ethnic community organizer-turned-Office of Personnel Management head Katherine Archuleta recklessly eschewed basic cybersecurity in favor of politically correct “diversity” initiatives during her disastrous crony tenure. This Beltway business-as-usual created an irresistible opportunity for hackers to reach out and grab massive amounts of sensitive data — compromising everyone from rank-and-file government employees to CIA spies.

Could it get worse? You betcha.

Amid increasing concerns about these massive government computer breaches, the Defense Department is expected to announce the winner of a lucrative high-stakes contract to overhaul the military’s electronic health records system this week.

The leading finalist among three top contenders is Epic Systems, a Wisconsin-based health care software company founded and led by top Obama billionaire donor Judy Faulkner. Thanks in significant part to President Obama’s $19 billion stimulus subsidy program for health data vendors, Epic is now the dominant EMR player in the U.S. health IT market.

According to Becker’s Hospital Review, CVS Caremark’s retail clinic chain, MinuteClinic, is now adopting Epic’s system, and “when the transition is complete, about 51 percent of Americans will have an Epic record.” Other major clients include Kaiser Permanente of Oakland, Calif., Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Arlington-based Texas Health Resources, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, and Duke University Health System in Raleigh, N.C.

As I’ve reported previously, Epic employees donated nearly $1 million to political parties and candidates between 1995 and 2012 — 82 percent of it to Democrats.

The company’s top 10 PAC recipients are all Democratic or left-wing outfits, from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (nearly $230,000) to the DNC Services Corporation (nearly $175,000) and the America’s Families First Action Fund Democratic super-PAC ($150,000). Faulkner received a plum appointment to a federal health IT policy panel in 2011. Brandon Glenn of Medical Economics noted that “it’s not a coincidence” that Epic’s sales “have been skyrocketing in recent years, up to $1.2 billion in 2011, double what they were four years prior.”

Stunningly, Epic “has the edge” on the gargantuan Pentagon medical records contract, The Washington Post reported on Monday. This favored status comes despite myriad complaints about the interoperability, usability and security of Epic’s closed-end proprietary software. Just last week, the UCLA Health system run by Epic suffered a cyber attack affecting up to 4.5 million personal and medical records, including Social Security numbers, Medicare and health plan identifiers, birthdays, and physical addresses. The university’s CareConnect system spans four hospitals and 150 offices across Southern California.

The university’s top doctors and medical staff market their informatics expertise and consulting services to other Epic customers “to ensure the successful implementation and optimization of your Epic EHR.” Will they be sharing their experience having to mop up the post-cyber attack mess involving their Epic infrastructure?

UCLA Health acknowledged that the hack forced it to “employ more cybersecurity experts on its internal security team, and to hire an outside cybersecurity firm to guard its network,” according to CNN.

Now another Obama crony is poised to cash in on her cozy ties and take over the mega-overhaul of millions of Pentagon and Veterans Affairs medical records to the tune of at least $11 billion.

New York –-(Ammoland.com)- Democratic Senate candidate Barbara Fiala in a radio interview on Tuesday declined to take a position on the 2013 gun control law known as the SAFE Act, saying she still has more research to do on the measure.

Fiala is expected to launch her bid for former Sen. Tom Libous’s seat on Thursday after he was ousted following a conviction on a charge of lying to the FBI.

Fiala, a former Broome County executive and was a member of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration until last year, acknowledged the gun control law is a controversial one.

“Well, you know, the SAFE Act has to be looked at,” Fiala said on The Capitol Pressroom. “What parts of the SAFE Act are objectionable to many, is it background checks — this is something that I’ll have to take a strong look at. I know it’s controversial.”

She added: “That’s something I’m going to have to do more research on.”

“It is not necessary for Barbara Fiala to take a public position on the so-called SAFE Act as we already know what her position on the issue of guns is,” NYSRPA Vice President Jacob Rieper stated.

“In a press release by Mayors Against Illegal Guns dated April 8, 2008, Barabara Fiala is listed as a member of County Executives Against Illegal Guns, an organization whose goal is to prohibit the private ownership of common firearms. We intend to inform our constituents in the Southern Tier of Fiala’s association with that group.”

Fairfax, VA -(AmmoLand.com)- In response to the recent deadly terrorist attack on a military recruitment center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, state Representative Frank Edelblut wrote a letter to Governor Maggie Hassan, urging her to allow members of the military to defend themselves.

While the Obama Administration has made it clear they are not willing to act, governors have the power to arm each state National Guard, and 14 states have made the common sense decision to arm National Guard troops.

The members of the National Guard in New Hampshire, who have sworn an oath to protect their country, have the right to defend themselves. They have the right to carry firearms domestically, as they do while deployed in service to this country.

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The bill now heads to Governor Pat McCrory for his expected signature. As previously reported, this legislation makes several important changes to North Carolina gun laws, including:

Requiring the chief law enforcement officer (CLEO) of a jurisdiction to certify the transfer or making of a firearm in a timely manner.

Clarifying the exemption for keeping a firearm in a vehicle by a person with a valid Concealed Handgun Permit (CHP) while the vehicle is on the property of a public school.

Establishing an affirmative defense for an individual in certain situations where he or she uses a firearm on prohibited school property “in response to a threatening situation in which deadly force was justified…”

Improving the existing Range Protection Law, which would help to protect established shooting ranges from new local ordinances designed to shut them down.

Please also contact your state Senator and thank her or him for voting for pro-gun HB 562, or express your disappointment if he or she voted against this bill that had virtually no stated opposition.

About the NRA-ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Fairfax, VA -(AmmoLand.com)- Last Friday, Governor Pete Ricketts authorized Major General Daryl Bohac to arm personnel as he deems necessary at National Guard installations:

“Susanne and I send our condolences to the families who lost their loved ones in last week’s tragic shooting in Tennessee. This authorization extends additional protections to our servicemen and women who need every resource we can provide them to defend themselves and our National Guard installations.”

“As a part of our efforts to constantly evaluate our state’s security measures, the Nebraska National Guard continues to look at what we might do differently, so that our state takes appropriate steps to protect our military members, their families, and the public.”

Your NRA would like to thank Gov. Ricketts for having the men and women who defend our country in his thoughts and taking the appropriate action to ensure their safety.

There is no reason why those trained and sworn to bear arms in defense of our Nation and our Constitution shouldn’t be able to defend themselves while at National Guard installations.

About the NRA-ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- There is much speculation about how to identify people at risk of committing violence, in order to preempt their possessing firearms.

This ignores risks from violence done with, say, hands and knives, but it’s a worthy goal.

However, it’s not one easily accomplished—and risks restricting Second Amendment rights from too many people who don’t present any risk at all.

The stereotypical characteristics of a mass shooter are being almost always male and usually white (but whites and African-Americans appear in proportion to their population percentages), with many meeting criteria for a major mental illness (most significantly paranoid schizophrenia). Yet this does not imply that being a white male with a major mental illness makes one likely to commit mass murder, or even become violent at all. Nor does being on psychiatric medication—taking prescribed antipsychotic and antidepressant medicines reduces the risk of violent ideation and acts by mentally ill patients.

I’ve treated thousands of psychiatric problems in people of all descriptions over the past 30 years and none of them has gone on a rampage. My experience is not just anecdotal. It’s an example of the facts that the mentally ill account for only about 4% of violent crime (even though most mass killers are likely mentally ill), but are more than twice as likely to be victims of violence as the general population.

These demographic factors do not equal causation, and they do not define the entire set of risks that may lead to bad deeds being done. Substance abuse is a greater factor itself (34%) in violent behavior that mental illness and substance abuse along with serious mental illness (5%), and binge drinking itself, seem to increase the risks of violence. Cultural factors have become more prominent during the past 20 years, with radical ideologies based on ethnic identity, religion, and/or collective paranoia inspiring the most horrific attacks.

Interestingly, people of Asian heritage commit such crimes at a higher rate, and those of Latino heritage at a lower rate, than their proportions of the population. There was Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech in 2007, Jiverly Wong in 2009 in Binghamton New York, but then there was also Ivan Lopez at Fort Hood in 2014.

Of course, confining attention to shootings ignores other means of mass murder such as explosives (Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in Oklahoma City in 1995, and the Tsarnaevs in Boston, 2013), arson (95 dead in Our City of Angels School in Chicago, 1958, and the Esperanza forest fire in 2006 by Raymond Lee Oyler), and causing vehicular crashes (Juan Manuel Álvarez in Glendale, California in 2005), not to mention plane crashes (the 9/11 attacks, of course, but also others beginning with Francisco Paula Gonzalez in 1964).

So although mass murders (the murder of 4 or more persons during a single event, according to the FBI) make big headlines and doing so with guns excites the adrenaline of our gun-control comrades, addressing these is not all there is to keeping safe from “gun violence”.

Most shootings occur between people who know each other, one on one, in large part during the commission of crimes, especially by gangs and associated with dealing and using illegal substances.

This sounds like a tautology, but it means that one way or another, people who want to kill with guns can and will kill. At the same time, other killing tools can’t effectively be monitored or controlled (knives, bats, gasoline, home-made explosives, etc.).

Unhappily, the current administration’s efforts to undercut the Second Amendment in any way possible have reached a new low. The President has directed that all federal departments apply guidance requiring consistent reporting of people with “subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease” to the National Instant Check System (NICS).

This has already led to depriving 177,000 veterans of their right to own firearms, and could next lead to as many as 4.2 million Social Security beneficiaries losing theirs. Congress is seeking to end that threat to veterans, as it considers the Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act. It may need to do more of the same to outlaw the widespread application of these criteria by agencies government-wide.

Psychiatrists, advocates for the disabled, civil libertarians and many others are united in opposing arbitrary deprivation of Constitutionally guaranteed rights based on the single criterion of being unable to manage one’s own finances. This is only one of several varieties of incompetence that may affect people. Other examples include incapacity to properly parent (leading to deprivation of parental rights), incompetence to stand trial, not guilty by reason of insanity, and incompetence to make rational health care decisions.

But none of these determines that any other exists, because each depends on a different set of intellectual, cognitive, and behavioral abilities. Only a court can determine legal incompetence in any sphere, advised by professional assessment of an individual, often by psychiatrists and others with such expertise.

Placing such life-altering legal decisions in the hands of bureaucrats is a perverse aggrandizement of government.

There are plenty of concerns that should be reported to and used via the NICS to prevent certain individuals from possessing guns as far as possible. These include convictions of violent crimes, active illegal substance use or addiction, and adjudication by a court of the specific incapacity to safely use firearms, along with mental illnesses such as major depression and schizophrenia with active symptoms that heighten dangerousness. But these can be temporary conditions, so they should be temporary determinations with ready access to appeal and have the restrictions voided.

Remember Martin Niemöller’s warning that if the line is not drawn when “First they came for” the social undesirables, there will ultimately be “no one left to speak for us” when we become targets. Be aware, stay alert, and don’t hesitate to fight back. Defending our rights against bad laws, like defending our persons against assault, gives both the best chance for survival.

Robert B. Young, MD is a psychiatrist practicing in Pittsford, NY, an associate clinical professor at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a project of the Second Amendment Foundation. www.drgo.us

The Capital, Tallahassee –-(Ammoland.com)- For the second time in little more than a year, a federal appeals court Tuesday upheld a controversial Florida law that restricts doctors from asking questions and recording information about patients’ gun ownership.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was a victory for the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates and a defeat for medical groups that argued, at least in part, that the law infringed on doctors’ First Amendment rights.

The appeals court last July also upheld the 2011 law but issued a revised ruling Tuesday. After last year’s decision, medical groups continued challenging the law, including asking for a rehearing before the entire Atlanta-based appeals court.

Docs vs. Glocks

Dubbed the “docs vs. glocks” law, the measure includes a series of restrictions on doctors and other health providers. As an example, it seeks to prevent physicians from entering information about gun ownership into medical records if the physicians know the information is not “relevant” to patients’ medical care or safety or to the safety of other people.

As another example, the law says doctors should refrain from asking about gun ownership by patients or family members unless the doctors believe in “good faith” that the information is relevant to medical care or safety.

Also, the law seeks to prevent doctors from discriminating against patients or “harassing” them because of owning firearms.

A federal district judge in 2012 sided with opponents of the law and issued an injunction against it. But the appeals court last July and again Tuesday overturned the injunction.

“The purpose of the act, as we read it, is not to protect patient privacy by shielding patients from any and all discussion about firearms with their physicians; the act merely requires physicians to refrain from broaching a concededly sensitive topic when they lack any good-faith belief that such information is relevant to the medical care or safety of their patients or others,” said the majority opinion, written by Judge Gerald Tjoflat and joined by Judge L. Scott Coogler.

But Judge Charles Wilson wrote a lengthy dissent arguing that the law violates the First Amendment rights of physicians.

“Simply put, the act is a gag order that prevents doctors from even asking the first question in a conversation about firearms,” Wilson wrote. “The act prohibits or significantly chills doctors from expressing their views and providing information to patients about one topic and one topic only, firearms.”

The Republican-dominated Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott approved the law after hearing accounts of doctors unnecessarily asking questions about gun ownership or even refusing to continue providing care if such questions were not answered.

In Tuesday’s majority opinion, Tjoflat repeatedly pointed to instances in which doctors can continue justify asking about firearms, such as in the case of a patient considered at risk of suicide.

“Thus, a physician may make inquiries as to the firearms-ownership status of any or all patients, so long as he or she does so with the good-faith belief — based on the specifics of the patient’s case — that the inquiry is relevant to the patient’s medical care or safety, or the safety of others,” the majority opinion said. “If, for example, the physician seeks firearm information to suit a personal agenda unrelated to medical care or safety, he or she would not be making a ‘good-faith’ inquiry, and so the act plainly directs him to refrain from inquiring.”

But Wilson’s dissent raised questions about whether the law stemmed from anecdotal incidents. He also argued that doctors should have the right to ask questions about guns in addressing the well-being of patients.

“There is nothing to suggest that the doctors’ inquiries or messages regarding firearms were not genuinely believed to be in the patients’ best medical interest when given,” Wilson wrote. “But there is evidence in the legislative history to suggest that the harassment provision (of the law) is designed to prevent these conversations from taking place in the future. That is certainly the result it will achieve. Doctors will largely cease inquiring into and counseling on the topic of firearms, lest they be accused of crossing the line between providing life-saving preventive medical information and promoting an anti-firearm political agenda.”

Washington DC – -(Ammoland.com)- During a recent appearance on Newsmax TV, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said the Second Amendment is an “absurd thing” in our constitution and that our legal framework needs to be adjusted “to create a presumption against gun ownership instead of a presumption in favor of gun ownership.”

We have tried an experiment for the last 250 years and it’s failed miserably and we have to start a new approach. The new approach has to be guns should not be available to people generally, except if they have a significant need.

If I could write the Bill of Rights over again, I would skip amendment number two. We’re the only country in the world that puts in our Constitution the right to bear arms. It’s an absurd thing to be in our Constitution, but it’s in our Constitution. We have to live with it.

He then referenced the attack that killed two people in the Grand Theatre in Lafayette, Louisiana, saying,

“Guns have to be well regulated and they are not well regulated in this country. We’re going to have these kinds of massacres over and over and over again until we change the gun culture and the National Rifle Association is part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

Dershowitz contends that if you want a gun you should have to go to the police or other authorities, borrow a gun for self-defense purposes or hunting, then be required to return it when finished using it.

He added:

What is needed is some very tough legislation both on the federal and state level to make it much, much harder to get guns and to create a presumption against gun ownership instead of a presumption in favor of gun ownership, consistent with the well-regulated militia language of the Second Amendment.

]]>http://www.ammoland.com/2015/07/alan-dershowitz-2nd-amendment-an-absurd-thing-in-our-constitution/feed/45Second-Amendment-Not-NegotiableSecond Amendment Not Negotiableammoland-logoAmmoLand Gun NewsIs Obama to Blame for Weak Economic Growth?http://www.ammoland.com/2015/07/obama-to-blame-for-weak-economic-growth/
http://www.ammoland.com/2015/07/obama-to-blame-for-weak-economic-growth/#commentsTue, 28 Jul 2015 16:04:55 +0000http://www.ammoland.com/?p=226661by Dr. Mark HendricksonEconomic growth under President Obama has been sluggish, fitful, faltering, and historically weak. But is it all his fault? In this interesting article that first appeared at Forbes.com, Dr. Mark Hendrickson argues that government intervention has been the main cause of the slow economic recovery and offers five prime examples.Dr. Mark Hendrickson

Grove City, PA –-(Ammoland.com)- A political science colleague sent me an article documenting President Obama’s dismal economic record, and he asked me for added details and perspective. Here goes:

True, economic growth under Obama has been sluggish, fitful, faltering, historically weak, etc. However, if you look at the charts in the article—especially the second and third—you can see that U.S. economic growth has been trending downward for several decades.

Conclusion: Our economic woes did not begin with Barack Obama. However, he has done nothing to reverse the trend; on the contrary, he has doubled down on the very policies that have hampered economic growth.

The headwinds opposing economic growth are generated by what Ronald Reagan referred to as “the government disease.” No president has advocated, championed, and imposed more harmful government intervention than Barack Obama.

Here’s a short list of those interventions:

1.) Government spending. Economists as far back as Adam Smith have noted that the true burden of government is what it spends, not what it taxes. When political decisions about where to allocate scarce economic resources supplant market decisions, production inevitably is diverted from the most highly valued needs to less valued things. Thus, less wealth is produced, economic growth is suboptimal, and the people are poorer than they otherwise would be.

While not having increased federal spending by as large a percentage as his predecessor, Obama undeniably has presided over more market-distorting government spending that any of his predecessors. To be fair, some of this spending was already baked into the cake—particularly the rising spending on Social Security and Medicare. Because federal entitlements operate on a “pay as you go” basis, these increasing expenditures to seniors do not consist of real economic returns on capital invested. Instead they transfer hundreds of billions of dollars from current workers to mostly retirees. Entitlement expenditures artificially inflate GDP and overstate the real wealth of the country, because those dollars represent purchasing power that does not arise from the production of actual goods or services.

2.) Rising debt. The greater the debt load, the more present income is diverted from present consumption to pay for past consumption. After a brief downturn following the 2008-9 financial crisis, total debt has risen by over 15 percent to a shade over $59 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve. Over half of the $7.35 trillion increased (some $4.84 trillion) is government debt stemming from Obama’s budgets.

Obama’s policy of encouraging and facilitating loans to college students has seen student debt soar to over $1 trillion with devastating economic consequences for the recipients. Young graduates struggling under the burden of debt have delayed marriage, child bearing, home buying, etc. In too many cases, college debt has stunted young American lives.

3.) Suffocating regulation. The Obama administration has burdened Americans with a record amount of federal regulation as measured by the number of new rules promulgated and pages in the Federal Register. The annual cost of the federal regulatory burden is now approximately $1.9 trillion (only nine countries’ GDPs are larger). As reported in Investor’s Business Daily, “the cost of enforcing federal economic regulations is … up 31 percent since Obama took office, and the ‘Code of Federal Regulations’ is 17,294 pages longer.”

Furthermore, as noted by Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, the Sarbanes-Oxley law (which Obama inherited, but has not revised) and Dodd-Frank (which a Democratic Congress passed in 2010 with Obama’s approval) have “placed significant burdens on the large number of small companies.” Consequently, we are in the unusual and worrisome situation of businesses closing at a faster rate than they are opening, thereby shrinking employment opportunities and slowing economic growth.

4.) Tax policy. Business tax rates have remained unchanged under Obama, and that has had negative consequences in a world that has been shifting toward lower corporate profit taxes. By allowing the United States to have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, American businesses are migrating abroad via the corporate inversion maneuver.

5.) The war on work. While constantly professing concern for workers, Obama has consistently supported and implemented policies—ranging from a higher minimum wage to federal jobs programs to anti-business policies—that have shrunk the number of jobs (see the Labor Force Participation Rate). Obama’s prize legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, has shrunk the number of hours worked (and consequently the amount of wealth created) by incentivizing employers to reduce the number of full-time jobs. According to David Stockman, the United States has two million fewer full-time workers now than it did in 2007.

Bottom line: President Obama’s policies have crippled the American economy.

Buckeye, AZ –-(Ammoland.com)- The Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday that the Obama administration is pushing a plan to submit the names of up 4.2 million recipients of Social Security benefits to the FBI’s National Instant Check System, or NICS, the massive database used for criminal background checks on gun buyers.

Only “prohibited persons,” those for whom possession of firearms and ammunition is illegal under the Gun Control Act, are included in the NICS database.

Inclusion in NICS not only blocks gun sales to people on the list, it flags them as Prohibited Persons under the Gun Control Act, and that it is a felony for them to be in possession or have access to firearms or ammunition under any circumstances.

The law regarding “prohibited persons” has become increasingly broad over the past few decades. It was originally passed as restrictions on violent felons, fugitives, people with dangerous mental disorders, and others who pose a significant threat to public safety, but in fact took away the rights of many non-violent offenders and people who would not be considered dangerous. With the addition of the Lautenberg Amendment in the 1990s, the prohibition was expanded to include anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

Under this provision, a wife fined $25 for slapping a cheating husband’s face is barred from possession of firearms for life.

The law (USC Title 18, Section 922, subsection g.) also prohibits possession of guns or ammunition by anyone “who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution.”

Note the key word “adjudicated.” While most reasonable people would interpret that to mean a ruling from a court, the implementing regulations for this law use a much broader definition. Under the Federal Code of Regulations (27 C.F.R. § 478.11) the relevant section reads as follows:

“(1) A determination by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority that a person, as a result of marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease:

Is a danger to himself or to others; or

Lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs.”

Many years ago, under Clinton, the Veterans Administration, began submitting the names of veterans and dependent beneficiaries to NICS, whom they said met that definition of “mentally defective,” including anyone who is not considered able to manage their VA benefits. Anyone who has had a fiduciary – usually a spouse, parent, or other relative – designated to manage their VA account, is added to NICS and considered a Prohibited Person.

The VA makes this “incompetence” determination, not through a court or commission, but through its own bureaucratic process. There is no judge, or even a determination from a physician required, and the VA determination of incompetence is not binding on any other aspect of the person’s life. A person rated as “mentally incompetent” under the VA can still enter into contracts, buy and sell real estate, incorporate a business, marry, divorce, or even adopt a child.

The only things they can’t do are sign VA-related documents or purchase or possess firearms or ammunition.

The Social Security Administration standards for “incompetence” are similar, it is merely a bureaucratic finding that the person’s interests are best served by having their benefits processed through what they call a “Representative Payee” rather than going directly to the beneficiary.

If the Obama administration gets their way, all of these people will also be prohibited from ever possessing a firearm or ammunition – even under close supervision – for the rest of their lives.

For most people, a determination of incompetence and the assignment of a fiduciary results in additional financial benefits. Both the VA and Social Security see this as an additional disability and they increase benefit payments accordingly. In the VA system, this can result in monthly benefit payments going up as much as $1000 per month or more. That can be a pretty strong incentive for a person to go along with, or even seek, an incompetency determination. Some people, when they discover that this is going to cost them their right to arms, have tried to fight the system, but saving their rights means giving up the additional financial assistance – and that can be a tough choice. (read financial coercion)

Nobody wants violent lunatics and suicidal individuals to get their hands on guns, but infringing on the rights of millions of innocent, harmless citizens is by no means a reasonable way for the VA or Social Security to attempt that.

The Republicans failed to address this problem when they controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, but they have had a bill in congress every session for the past five years called the Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act, which would correct VA’s dangerous overreach by requiring an actual adjudication that a person is a danger to themselves or others, before firearms rights could be revoked. Now that they once again control Congress, things aren’t looking much better. The bill only has four House co-sponsors.

If you are outraged by this situation, your elected representatives need to hear from you. The VA practice needs to be stopped, and it must not be allowed to spread to Social Security or other government programs. You can reach your Senators and Representative through their House.gov and Senate.gov links, or by calling 202-224-3121.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition is a project of Neal Knox Associates, Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org

A Rule 28(j) filing is used to “bring pertinent and significant authorities” to the Court’s attention after oral argument (in our case, back in January of this year), but before the decision is announced. In this instance the U.S. Supreme Court recently issued an 8-1 decision in the case of Johnson v United States which bolstered Knife Rights’ argument that the New York State law regarding gravity knives is unconstitutionally vague as applied by NYC and the DA to common folding knives (which are distinct from gravity knives because of their bias towards closure).

Justice Scalia wrote the opinion, which determined the residual clause in question to be in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Scalia described the statute as a “failed enterprise” that invited “arbitrary enforcement.”

He declared that individuals are unconstitutionally deprived of due process when they are convicted under “a criminal law so vague that it fails to give ordinary people fair notice of the conduct it punishes.”

We noted that SCOTUS also held that to survive a vagueness challenge the law must be clear in all its applications, not just some.

Justice Scalia wrote, “our holdings squarely contradict the theory that a vague provision is constitutional merely because there is some conduct that clearly falls within the provision’s grasp.”

So, even if the state gravity knife law is not vague in some instances, this decision goes directly to the City’s and DA’s “wrist flick” test because no one can know if any Common Folding Knife is legal since the test is inherently subjective and thereby is unconstitutionally vague in at least this particular instance.

The DA filed a responsive letter, but failed to address our argument in any substantive way. They merely contradicted our conclusion without providing any analysis or basis for their assertion.

About:
Knife Rights (www.KnifeRights.org) is America’s Grassroots Knife Owners Organization, working towards a Sharper Future for all knife owners. Knife Rights is dedicated to providing knife owners an effective voice in public policy. Become a Knife Rights member and make a contribution to support the fight for your knife rights. Visit www.kniferights.org

SAINT PAUL, MINN. –-(Ammoland.com)- Today, the Minnesota Gun Owners Political Action Committee called for immediate action by Governor Dayton to allow Minnesota National Guard Members the means of self-defense while on duty.

“Following the attack on military facilities in Tennessee last week, it’s clear that our military servicemen and women are being targeted for attack here in the United States,” said Bryan Strawser, Executive Director, Minnesota Gun Owners Political Action Committee (MNGOPAC).

“It’s unconscionable that we do not allow them the means of self-defense while serving our state.”

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton

Earlier today, several legislators held a press conference announcing legislation that they would bring forward in the 2016 legislative session to help address this issue.

“We support the proposed bill outlined this morning by House & Senate Republicans, ” stated Rob Doar, MNGOPAC Political Director. “We believe it is a good first step and applaud their leadership on this issue.”

“However, there is no need to wait until the 2016 legislative session. We call upon Governor Dayton to take immediate action to address this issue by allowing Minnesota National Guard members to be armed while on duty, ” stated Doar.

“The Governors of several other states, including Wisconsin, Louisiana, Texas, Indiana, and Florida have authorized the arming of National Guard members to deter attacks and allow them the ability to protect themselves and civilians in case they are targeted, ” added Strawser.

The Minnesota Gun Owners PAC has launched a petition drive and advertising campaign to encourage voters to contact Governor Dayton asking for immediate action on this issue.

Minnesota Gun Owners Political Action Committee (MNGOPAC) is a non-partisan single-issue political action committee that supports pro-Second Amendment lawmakers and candidates seeking state and federal office in Minnesota. MNGOPAC mobilizes Minnesotans through grassroots efforts to support pro-Second Amendment candidates while financially supporting candidates throughout the state. Learn more about MNGOPAC at www.mngopac.org.

Oklahoma –-(Ammoland.com)- That’s right, there was a mass murder in which five people were killed and one other seriously injured in Oklahoma a few days ago that the media is virtually ignoring.

Why is this criminal act being skipped by the national media?

Because no guns were used in the crime.

The young man the police say killed his family did so with a knife. That’s right, no guns, no national interest in a mass murder.

The murders occurred on July 25 2015. A sister survived but is seriously injured. And the police have no motive yet.

Police in Oklahoma say they have turned to social media posts for clues about the motive of a teenager accused in the stabbing deaths of his parents and three siblings during a late-night attack that left bodies strewn through the family’s home.

A booking document filed by police in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow accuses Robert Bever, 18, of five counts of first-degree murder and a count of aggravated assault in the attack Wednesday night.

Bever’s 16-year-old brother also was being held. Because he is a juvenile, officers have not released his name or announced charges against him. Broken Arrow Police Cpl. Leon Calhoun said both brothers were cooperating with the investigation.

Calhoun said Friday that the agency was still looking for a motive and was searching social media accounts that they believe belong to Bever. Those include community site Pinterest and a Facebook account.

The dead include his parents, David Bever, 52, and April Bever, 44. The Oklahoma State Medical Examiner’s Office on Friday also identified the three dead siblings as Daniel Bever, 12; Christopher Bever, 7; and Victoria Bever, 5. An unidentified 13-year-old sister was in serious but stable condition in a hospital and an unnamed 2-year-old sister wasn’t harmed and was placed in state custody.

But this story is practically absent from the major scheme of the national media. Why? Because no gun was used and the media can’t push its anti-gun narrative. So this story gets ignored.

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- The long-simmering disconnect between the Republican Party’s conservative base and its leaders in government has degenerated into a full-blown schism.

While President Obama accelerates his increasingly radical agenda, the GOP, despite its congressional majority, can barely muster an objection, let alone block his momentum.

Other than to offer a toothless public rebuke of Obama’s destructive schemes, what was the point of the 2014 GOP congressional landslide?

It’s no longer just a small percentage of conservatives questioning the GOP. Our people are furious — and rightly so.

I’ve recently shared my opinion that Donald Trump’s explosive surge is because of his giving voice to the conservative base’s outrage and his refusal to be chastened or muzzled.

Significantly, establishment Republicans are united with liberal Democrats in their contempt for Trump.

The latter attribute his popularity to some innate anger of mean-spirited conservatives who are supposedly soaking up Trump’s straight talk like bloodsucking vampires. The former refuse to lift a finger against that liberal slander, and some even pile on, saying that Trump supporters are nativists or xenophobes, as opposed to sane patriots determined to protect America’s borders and sovereignty.

Carly Fiorina

Let the elites look down their superior noses at us commoners. Be advised, though, that Trump is not the only one railing against the pervasive insanity, including the role that the GOP leadership is playing in it. Sen. Ted Cruz has set his sights on the “Washington cartel” — the quasi bipartisan ruling class that is presiding over the disgraceful dismantling of the United States as we know and love it. Candidate Carly Fiorina is also speaking eloquently about bringing “outside-the-box” changes to Washington to make a real difference, as opposed to merely slowing down the devastating Obama juggernaut.

It’s easy for the ruling class and its enablers to dismiss conservative opposition as misplaced fury, but grass-roots anger is anything but random and cathartic. It is not an eruption of malcontents looking for an excuse to air some deep-seated unhappiness.

Generally speaking, conservatives are optimistic and bullish on America. But they have witnessed assault after brutal assault against the Constitution, our liberties and our values, and they are justifiably mad as hell and are not inclined to take it anymore.

Adding insult to injury, they continue to elect Republicans to office based on their promise they will try not only to stop Obama’s momentum but also to reverse it and make real headway toward saving this nation.

Time after time, they deliver instead outright betrayal.

They always offer the same excuses. “We’re doing the best we can. We’re powerless to do much, and if we try, the voters will be angry and we’ll never win the presidency.”

Well, for a long time, I’ve held my tongue; I’ve given the leadership the benefit of the doubt and resisted impugning the party leaders’ motives, even when I strongly registered my objection to their perpetual caving. But I can no longer assume the best of people who are not simply failing to retard Obama’s agenda but, in many cases, facilitating it.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz

With the Corker bill, Senate Republicans have effectively forfeited their constitutional power to reject the Iran nuclear deal — the most dangerous foreign treaty (yes, it’s a treaty) in decades. Over the weekend, the ruling class rebuked and punished Cruz for admirably trying to put a wrench in the scheme to resurrect the Export-Import Bank. And don’t get me started on the leadership’s performance on Obamacare and Planned Parenthood.

The establishment pretends its outrage against Cruz is based on his alleged breach of Senate rules in accusing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying. These self-righteous patricians pretended to be appalled at this unforgivable incivility.

Well, let me ask you: Are you more worried about what Obama is doing to this nation or alleged violations of Senate decorum? If McConnell really lied to Cruz about a matter that affects the well-being of this nation, are you appalled at Cruz or at those shaming him for trying to represent our interests?

Establishment Republicans are not only emulating liberal Democrats in making Obama’s job easier but also acting like liberals in placing form above substance. Their faux ire at Cruz’s alleged violation of their prissy rules instead of at Obama’s agenda is like the liberal media’s outrage at the editing of the Planned Parenthood video rather than at its harvesting of the organs of unborn babies. Instead of joining Cruz, Sen. Mike Lee and others in really opposing Obama, like Democrats, they accuse him of being an opportunist who is interested only in his presidential ambitions.

I am unimpressed by self-serving rules of seniority among the ruling class. What I care about is that our interests are properly represented in Washington, especially by those who deceived us with promises that they would govern as conservatives. Now that, my friends, is opportunism.

God bless Sen. Cruz and all others who are trying to govern precisely as they promised and to give conservatism — and thus America — a fighting chance. We haven’t heard the end of this yet.

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- The American political class has failed the country, and should be fired. That is the clearest message from the summer surge of Bernie Sanders and the remarkable rise of Donald Trump.

Sanders’ candidacy can trace it roots back to the 19th-century populist party of Mary Elizabeth Lease who declaimed:

“Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.”

“Raise less corn and more hell!” Mary admonished the farmers of Kansas.

William Jennings Bryan captured the Democratic nomination in 1896 by denouncing the gold standard beloved of the hard money men of his day:

“You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

Sanders is in that tradition, if not in that league as an orator. His followers, largely white, $50,000-a-year folks with college degrees, call to mind more the followers of George McGovern than Jennings Bryan.

Yet the stagnation of workers’ wages as the billionaire boys club admits new members, and the hemorrhaging of U.S. jobs under trade deals done for the Davos-Doha crowd, has created a blazing issue of economic inequality that propels the Sanders campaign.

Between his issues and Trump’s there is overlap.

Both denounce the trade deals that deindustrialized America and shipped millions of jobs off to Mexico, Asia and China. But Trump has connected to an even more powerful current.

That is the issue of uncontrolled and illegal immigration, the sense America’s borders are undefended, that untold millions of lawbreakers are in our country, and more are coming. While most come to work, they are taking American jobs and consuming tax dollars, and too many come to rob, rape, murder and make a living selling drugs.

Moreover, the politicians who have talked about this for decades are a pack of phonies who have done little to secure the border.

Trump boasts that he will get the job done, as he gets done all other jobs he has undertaken. And his poll ratings are one measure of how far out of touch the Republican establishment is with the Republican heartland.

When Trump ridicules his rivals as Lilliputians and mocks the celebrity media, the Republican base cheers and laughs with him.

He is boastful, brash, defiant, unapologetic, loves campaigning, and is putting on a great show with his Trump planes and 100-foot-long stretch limos. “Every man a king but no man wears a crown,” said Huey Long. “I’m gonna make America great again,” says Donald.

Compared to Trump, all the other candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, are boring. He makes politics entertaining, fun.

Trump also benefits from the perception that his rivals and the press want him out of the race and are desperately seizing upon any gaffe to drive him out. The piling on, the abandonment of Trump by the corporate elite, may have cost him a lot of money. But it also brought him support he would not otherwise have had.

For no group of Americans has been called more names than the base of the GOP. The attacks that caused the establishment to wash its hands of Trump as an embarrassment brought the base to his defense.

But can Trump win?

If his poll numbers hold, Trump will be there six months from now when the Sweet 16 is cut to the Final Four, and he will likely be in the finals. For if Trump is running at 18 or 20 percent nationally then, among Republicans, it is hard to see how two rivals beat him.

For Trump not to be in the hunt as the New Hampshire primary opens, his campaign will have to implode, as Gary Hart’s did in 1987, and Bill Clinton’s almost did in 1992.

Thus, in the next six months, Trump will have to commit some truly egregious blunder that costs him his present following. Or the dirt divers of the media and “oppo research” arms of the other campaigns will have to come up with some high-yield IEDs.

Presidential primaries are minefields for the incautious, and Trump is not a cautious man. And it is difficult to see how, in a two-man race against the favorite of the Republican establishment, he could win enough primaries, caucuses and delegates to capture 50 percent of the convention votes.

For almost all of the candidates who will have dropped out by then will have endorsed the last man standing against Trump. And should Trump be nominated, his candidacy would make Barry Goldwater look like the great uniter of the GOP.

Still, who expected Donald Trump to be in the catbird seat in the GOP nomination run before the first presidential debate? And even his TV antagonists cannot deny he has been great for ratings.

California –-(Ammoland.com)- People who entered the United States illegally may be called “undocumented” in politically correct circles, but what is all too well documented is the utter irresponsibility of both political parties in dealing with immigration issues.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations have left the border with Mexico porous for years — porous not just for Mexicans but for anybody else, including terrorists from the Middle East.

Two very different issues have gotten jumbled together in the political stew called “comprehensive immigration reform.” The first and most fundamental issue is whether we are going to have an immigration policy at all. The second issue is: Just what should that immigration policy be?

If we do not control our own border, then we do not have any immigration policy. We may have immigration laws on the books, but if anybody can cross the border that wants to, those laws are just words on paper and a bad joke.

Polls showing the surprisingly favorable reactions of some Republican voters to Donald Trump’s irresponsible generalities about immigrants probably reflect many people’s frustrations with politicians’ weasel words on the subject, and politicians’ failure to do anything about a festering problem.

The recent murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant with multiple felonies and multiple expulsions, followed by multiple illegal returns to this “sanctuary city,” has been galling to many people.

One immediate consequence of this outrage has been a drive to pass “Kate’s law” prescribing mandatory prison time for anyone who has been expelled from this country and comes back again illegally. That is overdue.

It is a painful sign of the deterioration of respect for law that a new law has to be passed to prevent a “sanctuary city” from obstructing justice, which is already a crime.

The larger issue is control of our own borders. We can debate forever whether building a fence is the best way to do that. But too much time has been wasted already.

One thing is certain. Building a fence won’t hurt. If other things can be done to secure the border, then do those things as well. The American people deserve some concrete reassurance that Congress is finally getting serious.

Donald Trump’s sweeping smear of immigrants does not need to be answered by an equally sweeping celebration of immigrants. Nor should we use the old cop-out that “the truth lies somewhere in between.” The truth is wherever you find it. But too many politicians of both parties do not even want to look for the truth.

Instead of holding extensive Congressional hearings, airing all the arguments pro and con on immigration issues, and bringing out all the available facts, some politicians seek to rush through “comprehensive immigration reform” — meaning some sweeping legislation that neither the public nor the Congress has had time to consider.

Congress did that when it passed ObamaCare. Do we want to let immigration laws become something else that we learn about only after the fact, when it is too late?

No doubt immigrants, like any other large group of human beings, range from some of the best people to some of the worst. But it makes a huge difference what the proportions are.

What are the crime rates, the disease rates, the automobile fatality rates, the educational records of the children of immigrants from different countries?

Above all, we need the facts. There has been too much rhetoric already. If our politicians are too gutless to bring out the facts, perhaps some think tank or television station can hold an hour-long debate between some proponent of expansive immigration and some opponent.

Jason Riley of the Manhattan Institute has written a book titled “Let Them In” ( tiny.cc/2xg40x ) and columnist Ann Coulter has written a book on the other side titled “Adios, America.” ( tiny.cc/c367yx ) Both cite empirical studies.

A spirited debate between knowledgeable and articulate advocates could bring out which evidence stands up under scrutiny and which does not.

Regardless of who might “win” the debate, we could all become more enlightened. This issue needs all the light it can get.

About Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, as well as a prolific author including Black Rednecks And White Liberals. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read his articles visit his website above.

Missoula, MT –-(Ammoland.com)- After weeks of data gathering and crunching, I have finally posted the scores earned by members of the Montana Senate and House for votes cast on firearm-related bills in the 2015 legislative session.

Senate and House members are posted twice, once sorted by percent and grade, and again sorted by legislative district, to make it easier for you to identify legislators in your area.

Now it’s time to start thinking about who may replace those legislators who failed to achieve a passing grade. You need to start looking around your community for viable candidates, as needed.

To assist you with that, I’ve also posted to this link a list of attributes you should look for when trying to identify a good candidate.

So, the hunt for candidates begins. We need your help with that. The candidate filing window will close in early March of 2016, but we need to start looking NOW.

Some legislators are term-limited – they can’t run again. Some have already announced intent to run for a different office, such as a House member who intends to run for the Senate. As this picture begins to take shape, I’ll get more information to you.

Meanwhile, it’s time to start shaking the bushes looking for candidates to replace those who don’t pass muster.

2015 Montana House Politician’s Gun Vote Scores

Thanks loads for your help!

Gary Marbut, president

About Montana Shooting Sports Association:MSSA is the primary political advocate for Montana gun owners. Visit: www.mtssa.org

Washington DC – -(Ammoland.com)- When Obama spoke to BBC last week he stressed his frustration over not being able to secure more gun control and suggested that the guns outweigh terrorism as a threat to Americans’ safety.

Obama’s exact words: “If you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it’s less than 100. If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it’s in the tens of thousands.”

In the lead up to this statement, Obama mentioned “mass killings” with guns but did not mention mass killings or attempted mass killings in which those holding the guns were jihadists.

He said, “The United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense, gun-safety laws.”

However, it is not that America does not have gun control. Rather, it is that Americans increasingly see that gun control does not stop criminals from acting out their criminality, therefore support for more gun laws has waned.

Ft Collins, CO –-(Ammoland.com)- An armed civilian in his 20s, on volunteer guard duty, unintentionally fired a shot from his AR in OH. Unnecessary Gun-Handling.

Fortunately, the muzzle was pointed downward at the time, and the single errant bullet hit the pavement.

It made a divot, but caused no additional damage nor injuries. The incident took place outside a military recruiting center.

Someone apparently had asked to look at his AR. The voluntary guard, while attempting to comply with the person’s request, was in the process of “unloading” his rifle when the negligent discharge (ND) occurred.

Openly armed citizens started showing up at this and other military recruiting centers, acting as voluntary armed guards, in the wake of last week’s massacre of unarmed USMC and USN personnel at another recruitment center in Chattanooga, TN.

The Pentagon’s “solution” to such recurring massacres of unarmed troops is to strip them of their uniforms and tell them to “pull the shades.” I only wish they weren’t so predictable!

The voluntary guard in this case will face misdemeanor charges.

Last week, a USN recruiter in Atlanta was responsible for a similar ND, this time with a personally-owned 1911 pistol. He was in the middle of a “safety lecture,” displaying to another sailor his “unloaded gun.” As he reholstered, he shot himself in the leg! His physical injuries, at least, were not serious. We understand the remainder of the “safety lecture” has been postponed indefinitely!

The foregoing are two examples are why we teach our students not to handle guns unnecessarily, regardless of their supposed “condition.”

When armed, we don’t “show” our gun(s), no matter their ostensible “condition,” to other people, particularly for trivial reasons. In addition, we don’t discuss our gun(s), their ostensible condition, nor related subjects, with people who don’t need to know.

Concealed guns stay concealed, out of sight and out of conversation.

In the former case, the correct response to casual questions about an openly-carried rifle, is:

“I’m sorry sir. I can’t help you. Please stay back.”

In the latter case, had the pistol in question simply remained in its holster and not touched, nor discussed, there would have been no incident, of any kind, and the media would have had nothing to talk about!

Our military’s love-affair with never-ending gun-handling, the vast majority of it serving no legitimate purpose, generates NDs on a regular basis.

These unnecessary and unsafe procedures are a direct result of:

(1) A universal, morbid fear of guns throughout our military services

(2) A universal fear and distrust among military personnel of each other

(3) The common knowledge that small-arms training within our military is outdated, inadequate, and hopelessly parochial!

Personnel thus “trained” may know something about how a gun operates, but won’t have a clue with regard to how to live with one on a continual basis, nor how to actually integrate it, boldly and fearlessly, into his daily, personal security routine.

Instead, we run sterile, boring, cold ranges, even then only rarely. All the time, troops (all ranks) are told they can’t be trusted with guns. Guns, even in active combat zones, are only rarely loaded (at least intentionally), endlessly “unloaded,” and almost never carried in so-called “safe” areas (which are arbitrarily declared in an effort to disarm troops).

The result of our current philosophy:

(1) Massacres of our unarmed troops, on a continual basis, both overseas and within CONUS.

(3) Vain, self-absorbed politicians, in and out of uniform, who stubbornly insist that nothing change.

“When you don’t know where you’re going, any path will take you there!” ~ Anon

/John

About John Farnam & Defense Training International, Inc
As a defensive weapons and tactics instructor John Farnam will urge you, based on your own beliefs, to make up your mind in advance as to what you would do when faced with an imminent and unlawful lethal threat. You should, of course, also decide what preparations you should make in advance, if any. Defense Training International wants to make sure that their students fully understand the physical, legal, psychological, and societal consequences of their actions or inactions.

It is our duty to make you aware of certain unpleasant physical realities intrinsic to the Planet Earth. Mr Farnam is happy to be your counselor and advisor. Visit: www.defense-training.com

I had reached out to Anthony “I Will Not Comply” Colandro, Master Firearm’s trainer and he invited me over for a chat.

I told him I was working on an article on NJ gun laws and what we are dealing with here in New Jersey….This is what he had to say:

“I believe people from other states need to understand our plight. Because we repeat over and over again that what happens in New Jersey does not stay in New Jersey, like the Lautenberg act. Which is also what turned into minimum mandatory sentencing…if you are charged with domestic violence, you can lose your gun rights for the rest of your life. And people don’t understand that under those laws and the graves act, that all started in New Jersey. People tell me all the time ‘Well I moved and I don’t care about New Jersey or what happens there now’ because they live in Tennessee or Texas, a free state.”

“I tell them, that is BS. You have to be concerned. We are the hotbed of socialism here and they are going to experiment here in New Jersey and New York and they are going to get a law passed and then they’re going to try to go national with it…Or other states like Colorado, you see what happened in Colorado before the recall effort, they tried to pass the same laws that we have here in New Jersey, magazine bans etc. etc.

People need to understand that what happens in New Jersey does not stay in New Jersey.”

Getting to Know The Garden State

When someone makes mention of New Jersey a few things come to mind immediately…Pork Roll, Bruce Springsteen, The Jersey Shore and the biggest question of all, “What’s your exit?”. What has not generally come to mind are things like gun ownership, concealed carry and the shooting sports.

That tide is changing slowly, and the approximate one million gun owners in the State of New Jersey are starting to be heard.

New Jersey Firearms ID Card

New Jersey, overall, has some of the most Draconian and restrictive firearms laws in the country. A quick overview of some of the laws in the State of New Jersey will astound many of you. For example, if an individual wants to buy a Shotgun or Rifle (that includes BB guns folks!) they must first obtain a New Jersey Firearms ID (FID) card – which includes an FBI background check/ NJ NICS check (check #1), fingerprints and a whole slew of other things that can be found here. After getting that all done, you will be issued, or Should, be issued your FID. With a newly minted Legal, Town/State Issued Document, which is just a card, with one’s name and fingerprint, a lot like a business card, which would deteriorate in one’s wallet over time, one is now able to head over to their local gun shop and gain entry to the world of firearms ownership.

Presenting said sad document, with a Driver’s License, the worker at the retail location would run the NICS check, but not just any NICS check, the New Jersey NICS check (check #2), which costs money and eventually one will get the yay or nay on if the purchase can go through. Now this is instant folks, but this is a different kind of instant…instant as in from five minutes to several days or weeks. Then you fill out the federal forms, a NJ Certificate of Eligibility, fork over the money and leave a gun owner. Congratulations, you have a shotgun, rifle or BB gun. With the newly acquired FID card you can now buy and possess long guns without abandon.

Want a Pistol? (FYI A BB Pistol is the same as a real pistol in NJ)

Well, you can only buy one handgun a month and you must go through the same process to get an FID card to obtain a Pistol Purchaser’s Permit/Certificate of Register including a NJ NICS check (check #3).

You need one permit per pistol, permits are good for 90 days but at some police departments, it can be extended for another 90 days and then you can kiss them goodbye, fees, NICS checks and all. You need to start it all over again.

With a newly minted Pistol Permit in hand, head over to your retailer, do the extra special NJ NICS check (check #4, same as the 1st three checks), hear back, fill out the federal forms, fill out the pistol permit in quadruplicate, fork over the money and now you’re the proud owner of a pistol.

Make sure you hold onto your pink copy of the permit, as that is the only record you have to prove you bought that gun, which is a big deal in New Jersey.

What Next?

Most Dangerous Cities in America

From the retail location, you can ONLY do one of the following things: Go DIRECTLY home. Go DIRECTLY to a shooting range. Go DIRECTLY to a licensed gunsmith. Go DIRECTLY to your place of business that you own. Go Directly out of state to somewhere that you are legally allowed to have that firearm, but make sure you follow federal laws in doing so. Do you catch the drift?Directly. Those are the only places you can take your legally owned pistol to in the state of New Jersey;

home,

business that you own,

gunsmith,

range

and out of state.

Do not stop for gas, restroom breaks, food, coffee, to pick up passengers, buy ammo, check on mom and dad….If you do, and if you get caught, you are now a felon.

Politics Not Aside

Suffice it to say, New Jersey is not a pleasant place to be a gun owner. It is a land where the closet gun owner flourishes. How did New Jersey go from point A – an epicenter during the American Revolution, to point B – a epicenter of some of the most violent cities in the nation and a place where the criminals have more freedoms than the law abiding citizens? A place where the creators of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence fought against tyranny, only for it to be returned back to tyranny. What did this?

Senator Sweeney, one of us?? One of the 1200 (that is one thousand two hundred folks) concealed carry permit holders in the state of New Jersey. Not really.

His 2009 “Nay” vote for Assembly Bill 339, “Handgun Purchasing Limitations”, a bill written to restrict pistol purchases to one a month supported his alleged solidarity to gun owners. The bill (with some turn-coat republican help) eventually became law anyhow. Six months later Stephen Sweeney would become Senate President.

Justifiable Need

When I turned 21, FID card in hand (which you can get at the age of 18), I naively went to my local Police Department. I grew up in a fairly nice area in New Jersey, centrally located. We paid a lot of taxes. The Police Department was always a rather welcoming place, I remember being a Boy Scout and I used to volunteer on Election Day there because it was a polling place. I walked into the police department and greeted the smiling middle aged woman at the front desk. I stated my intentions, “Hi, I would like to apply for a license to carry a concealed gun.” She looked at me blankly and said “No.” To which I was a taken back and then with all the wisdom in the world retorted “It is my constitutional right.”

Her reply will stick with me forever, “Not in New Jersey….”

Justifiable Need. That’s right. One of the few “May Issue” states left in the union, is New Jersey. To save on a lengthy explanation, consider New Jersey’s “May Issue” policy a de facto ban for ordinary citizens. Unless one is employed as an armored car driver, a security guard of some sorts, body guard, private detective or retired police officer, consider your chances of getting a Concealed Carry Weapons license impossible. Correction, impossible unless you are politically connected. Approximately One Thousand Two Hundred CCW licenses exist in New Jersey…I’ve met all of 1 or 2 people that actually have one. And each one of those had restrictions that said “while in the execution of ‘job’ duties.” or some mumbo jumbo like that which says they need to be on the clock.

There have been countless cases and instances in the State of New Jersey in trying to appeal this arbitrary concealed license law. Efforts have been made to try and return a right which you can freely exercise just over the river in the state of Pennsylvania (If you’re a resident or PA.) The Muller case, one dealing with mistaken identity, kidnapping and attempted murder, eventually made way and became the Drake case, as Muller did eventually became one of the 1200. John Drake is the owner and operator of an ATM business and frequently carries large sums of cash. He was denied a CCW for not fulfilling the Justifiable Need Clause. Drake, made it all the way up to The Supreme Court of The United States (SCOTUS) and was denied a chance to be heard.

The Pantano case died at the New Jersey Supreme court, which initially agreed to hear the case – the first case of its kind in years – ‘changed their mind’ after SCOTUS dropped Drake. Pantano runs a landscaping business and carries large quantities of cash. After being denied a hearing with the New Jersey Supreme court, Pantano folded his hand. There has been case after case. The Almeida case is now making the rounds, one involving a property manager who was denied a CCW after being threatened and targeted by dangerous gang members.

What did the authorities say when he denied Almeida his CCW Permit? “That he hire security or find other ways to conduct his business.“

Almeida is expected to just change jobs because a Judge says so. In addition to the piles of cases, just about every year a right leaning lawmaker proposes a bill to revise New Jersey’s Justifiable Need clause, currently the “Citizen’s Protection Act”. However, no bill will make it out of committee or to the floor for a vote unless the Senate President Sweeny ‘allows’ it.

The Tides Change

Senator Sweeney was voted in as Senate President in November of 2009 and was sworn into office in January of 2010. Things would seem business as usual. After being safely voted in as Senate president, in December 2009, Sweeney voted yay on A 2762 – Authorizes court to waive or reduce parole ineligibility or grant probation for drug-free school zone violations under certain circumstances. This would seem to be a strange bill to be proposed…So depending on if school is in session would give a judge further latitude with a criminal’s parole and probation? That hardly seems like it’s in the public’s interest, unless jail crowding is what we’re most worried about. Then in February 2011 Sweeney throws up a yay vote on S 958 – Authorizes the Limited Sale of Syringes and Needles Without a Prescription. Another interesting bill, this one allows drug users the right to go to their local pharmacy and buy and possess, no more than, 10 hypodermic needles, exempting them from drug paraphilia laws. The concern on this one is the spread of disease from using dirty needles, valid. Both of these bills hardly seem to try and attack or rectify the underlying issues, crime and drugs in the state of New Jersey. These are really just feel good band aids to the big problems we have in New Jersey.

Whether it was a change of heart, political pressure or outright hypocrisy, Senator Sweeney turned on gun owners in the state of New Jersey. After receiving support from the 2nd Amendment community and their trust, an onslaught of anti-gun bills came out in 2013 & 2014 and Senator Sweeney was spearheading one that he said the nation would use as a model. S 2723 – Revises statutes concerning firearms purchaser identification cards and handgun purchase permits; makes handgun purchase permit valid for four years, this was the bill he referenced.

Under S 2723, gun owners Firearms ID Cards would no longer be cheesy pieces of paper. Hey, that’s potentially a plus? Except, the language of the bill would make it so the information would be embedded into one’s driver’s license or state issued ID. Suffice it to say, that would be a gross breach of privacy for gun owners, especially given the large number of “closet gun owners” the state has.

If it had guaranteed that the FID card could be another standalone document, like it is now, except maybe something made from plastic with a photo on it, hell, kudos to that! If you ever get a chance to see a New Jersey FID card or one of the 1200 CCWs, you will see that we do need to step up our game in that department. Many suggest that the flimsy paper card and over size shape, it wont fit in a standard wallet, is done on purpose to inconvenience NJ FID owners and potentially trip them up with the law by not having their card. As it stands, our identification and permits for firearms are pathetic.

The Back of New Jersey’s flimsy paper Firearms ID Card.

Another provision of the bill was to do away with the current paper pistol permitting scheme and embed this on the intrusive driver’s license or ‘other’ form of ID. In the case of ‘other’ form of ID, ”firearms purchaser identification card (FPIC)”, I say again, kudos! No papers to deal with? The permit is good for 4 years, instead of 90 days. But yes, requires renewal every 4 years. Current FID cards are valid until one moves to a different house. So, I don’t know how happy I would be with having to renew the FID card. Anyone that gets a “Boat/Auto” endorsement on their driver’s license knows that this is just another money making scheme, not to mention one is a privileg and the other is a right. So, okay, pistol permits good for 4 years, yeay! Having to renew FID card every 4 years, not the best. So far the bill does not seem “that” intrusive, if it were actually implemented with ‘good’ intentions, and not on one’s driver’s license (did you see what I did there? ‘that’ intrusive, so that means, yes its intrusive but, eh “okay.” – Not really).

With the bill, a system to ‘instantly’ tell if a buyer is eligible or not would be put into place. Perhaps a scanner of the card? Or a punch in of the numbers. Something that would tell the seller that the person buying the gun would be allowed to. Wait a second, we already have a federal NICS and we already use our super special NJ NICS. Why do we need another system? This sounds like a waste of money. Just have the ID card include Pistol Purchaser’s Permits on the language of the card… and forego the whole system of a permit for every individual pistol and continue using a Big Brother “form of register”. I think that would be more cost effective. The bill is not looking so hot now.

The next provision is the one where you lose the majority of people, “…present evidence of the successful completion of a firearms safety class or course approved by the superintendent as a condition for being issued the card, license, or permit”. Let’s not waste time discussing the finer points of this. Firearms ownership is a right, as opposed to a privilege, such as driving a car. I’m an advocate of firearms training. I’m also an NRA Instructor. Making this mandatory though, I am not hitting the ‘like’ button on that one. Another “stellar” part of the bill would include FFL and NICS use required for ALL firearms sales, banning private sales.

In the mix at the same time its important to note Sweeney’s support of A 3659 – Amends the Definition of Destructive Devices, also known as the 50 cal ban. The original language of the bill allegedly would have outlawed certain shotguns, probably not by design, but ignorance.

The bill had some merits. The bill also had several things that would outright infringe on a person’s rights. Period! That infringement is being construed as gun control. The same thing that Sweeney promised he would not push upon the people of New Jersey.

I do not support them. I do not think they make a difference. Training will allow a person with a 10 round magazine to do the same damage as if it held 15 rounds, and the age old argument of the criminals don’t follow the laws anyhow, so the only people this affects are law abiding citizens.

Criminals, if you want magazines with capacities higher than 10 or 15 rounds, just drive to Pennsylvania. Luckily this bill was vetoed again by Christie.

In 2014 there was a bill to revise the ‘reasonable deviations’ clause of New Jersey gun law, A2777. This is what says you must go directly home, directly to the range, etc. The provisions in the revisions of the law were supposed to be a “bone” tossed to NJ gun owners. An olive branch of sorts from Sweeney and the gun grabbers….They were insulting at best and the bill did not go anywhere. They completely dropped it. A real ‘olive branch’ would be: “you can have a gun in your car whenever you want (I’ll sneak ‘loaded’ into this too). “ How many people do you think have been tripped up for inadvertently having a gun in their car, not knowing they could not have a gun in their care and or for doing what they thought was the ‘right thing’? (Gordon Van Gilder, Shaneen Allen, Steffon Josey Davis, Brian Fletcher, Blake Harr, et.al.)

Things Get a Little More Murky

Second Amendment advocates and supporters in the state of New Jersey started to pound on Sweeney about his stance on gun control and gun laws in the state. Frankly, Sweeney pissed off a lot of people and organizations. In the past, he had no problem taking donations from Second Amendment groups but the coat has turned. Sweeney has stated that he outright will not support concealed carry in the state of New Jersey.

State Senator Steve Sweeney Tweets ‘He Will Never Support Concealed Carry’

Sweeney comes out of the anti-gun closet and makes his intentions known…The former supporter of New Jersey gun owners starts quoting Brady Campaign and Bloomberg Group statistics and in some cases does not even do it accurately.

Sweeny, the card carrying CCW holder, shows his true colors and given the rhetoric, we now know where he stands.

What’s Gasoline Got to Do With it?

When I got a little older and moved off to college in the faraway, equally depressing (in certain regards), land of Massachusetts, I discovered all kinds of new things. I temporarily uprooted. To get to Massachusetts you must drive through New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island (depending on your route) and then you’ll finally be in the land of deflated footballs (yes that was a shot). The most interesting thing I learned was how to pump my own gas. In New Jersey, not only is it illegal to have a gun in your car outside of exemptions, have a BB gun without a license, fire off fireworks, have a slingshot (look out Bart Simpson), it is also illegal to pump your own gas.

Let’s not get into the whys and how’s of this. Let’s just focus on the fact that New Jersians are not allowed to pump their own gas.

This is about to change….so we thought. Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, planned on introducing a bill that would overthrow the ban. The bill was met with enthusiasm and a local New Jersey talk-radio station was a-blaze with callers in support of reversing this gas pumping ban. But guess what? Sweeney does not support this.

“I continue to support the full service requirement for New Jersey’s gas stations and I will oppose any attempt to rescind the law that has effectively served the best interests of the state’s motorists for decades,” Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said in a statement Tuesday. “As long as I am Senate President, the ban on self-serve will stay in place.”

There you have it…What Sweeney says, goes. Where do we think the “Citizen’s Protection Act” would fall in line for being heard on Sweeney’s agenda? Since Sweeney does not think we’re responsible enough to pump our own gas….

Time to Recall

“NJ Constitutional law allows a State legislator to be recalled if the citizens of New Jersey are not happy with the way they are representing their constituents. We have the ability to restore NJ by initiating this recall and having Senator Sweeney kicked out of office for acting in his own interest and not the interests of NJ residents.”

Alexander Roubian, current president of the New Jersey 2nd Amendment Society (NJ2AS) had a turning point in his life. Meeting with Roubian, he relayed his story to me:

“I would say I understood what my rights were as a naive college student at the time. I had graduated and was taking some Master’s classes at Rutgers in Newark. I was walking home from my office in down town Newark. Literally 20 feet behind me I heard a man scream for his life and a loud bang. I was so naive and ignorant I thought it was some people playing with fire crackers. I took off and when I went back inside, my roommate told me maybe it was not a firecracker….we went back out to go look around the corner and we saw a dead body lying there. It was maybe 20 feet behind me.”

Alexander Roubian

With a new enthusiasm for the second Amendment and a lust for learning, Roubian started to research how to get a firearm in New Jersey. He could not understand the whole process without digging deeper into the text of New Jersey gun law.

It’s been years since that day in Newark when Roubian made the commitment to become a gun owner and his zeal and activism has brought much worth to the efforts in New Jersey. Story after story concerning the corrupt politics in New Jersey poured out of him. I asked Roubian about Sweeney and a chance meeting he had with him in Trenton:

“I was testifying for the senate law and public safety committee. Where Sweeney was talking about his Utopian gun law that would stop all gun crime and save women and children. It was so ‘Starwars’….

When we finished up the hearing I saw the elevator door was partially closed and I jumped right in and Stephen Sweeney was standing there with his armed guard. We instantly noticed each other. He stepped up to me in an intimidating fashion, to my toes and said ‘You know…I can legally carry a gun and they call me the Union thug.’…I don’t know his name but the guard was a witness to this.”

When asked about the tipping point, Roubian asked back:

“How many times did they have to turn off our microphone (in hearings in Trenton)? How many times did they have to kick us out of a Senate hearing? How many times did they tell us ‘well lets vote on the bill first and then we’ll listen to your concerns.’ Another tipping point was when they actually held a roll call vote and once they realized, the Democrats, that they were not going to get the vote out of committee, they stopped it and tabled the bill and ultimately transferred it to another committee…which is so illegal I do not understand how these people are not being federally investigated.”

Pressed further about the state of New Jersey, Roubian Continued:

“We have to emphasize the point that for us to believe and have this narrative that we’re going to have another conversation with these legislatures, that we’re going to convince them, is insanity. The game has changed and we have to change. We are not going to win the argument when we’re saying the constitution allows these things and the opposition is literally exploiting dead children. Saying we can stop this from happening. They do not talk about the blacks and minorities being murdered every year, by the hundreds. In Newark, like I witnessed. And the Hispanics that are being murdered in New Jersey’s inner cities. Why are we not talking about those issues of crime? Why are we importing calamity from Connecticut and other states to push forward their agenda?”

Roubian started researching the recall laws in New Jersey. After fully reading and understanding the law, he started to get the wheels in motion. This is monumental for New Jersey….As Roubian explains

“A couple of weeks ago when I went to the state election department, they were looking at me in awe. Telling me you understand this is the first time in history that anyone in New Jersey has done this on a state level?”

A Right Delayed is a Right Denied – and can be Deadly

On June 3rd, 2015 Carol Bowne was murdered. A headline bearing the notes that another person was stabbed to death in New Jersey should or would be of no surprise to anyone reading the news. On any given week, if you look at the main headlines on Nj.com, a news site for New Jersey news, you will find several violent and or drug related stories being promoted.

This story is much more tragic, the story of Carol Bowne is a telling tale of the continued failure of New Jersey’s Government, as a whole, to protect and or allow citizens the right to protect themselves.

Carol Bowne

Carol Bowne was a victim of domestic violence. Her ex-boyfriend made it a habit to harass, antagonize and threaten her. Following what would be the letter of the law and also what would be the suggestions of New Jersey lawmakers, Carol got a restraining order. This magical document by nature of its design would protect Carol. Carol got a security and surveillance system, one that would later document her gruesome murder in her driveway. Carol applied for a New Jersey Pistol Permit on April 21st 2015, she made the decision she needed more protection. Start the clock….

Under New Jersey law, the public masters have 30 days to issue a FID card and or Pistol Permit when they are applied for. Now, if say a gun owner were to purchase two or attempt to purchase two pistols in a thirty day period, they would immediately be charged with breaking the law and arrested. On a near weekly basis Bowne called her police department and checked on the status of her firearms paperwork as NJ’s 30 day time-limit ticked away. On a near weekly basis, if not several times a week, Carol called the police to inform them that she felt her life was in danger. On Monday June 1st 2105, Carol made one last call to the police department to check on her permit…two days later she would be murdered.

Forty Two days after applying for her Pistol Permit, asking permission to from the state to use her God given right, she was slaughtered.

First Amendment at Work (For a Little While at least….)

Given Senate President Sweeney’s stance on guns, gun control, concealed carry and his arrogant way of basically saying no bill will pass or make it to the floor unless he says so, The New Jersey Second Amendment Society took to peaceful protests.

New Jersey Citizens Protest the Murder of Carol Bowne in front of Senator Steve Sweeney

For two weekends, outside the home of Senator Sweeney, protesters gathered to express their desire for change.

Initially Sweeney called the police and an officer showed up to interrogate the protesters. The protesters, breaking no laws, politely declined to provide their identification to the police. Officers, being filmed, knowing the letter of the law made it clear that the protesters are to not step on the property, block the driveway or get in the street. The protesters were such a threat that Sweeney had the Chief of Police show up…for what, I don’t think anyone is sure.

And attempts to shoo away the protesters by turning on his sprinklers were met with disappointment, as they would have brought their bathing suits had they known it was going to be a pool party. During one of the encounters, Sweeney is approached by a protester that introduced him to one of Bowne’s family members. Sweeney ignored them – the opposite of what he did when the family members of victims of the Sandy Hook shooting talked to him…No he had them there to support the magazine limit bill. But a simple expression of condolences to Carol’s family was not had. Where is the bill for Carol Senator Sweeney?

In the wake of two peaceful protests, what is the response from the public masters? West Deptford city council makes movements to ban protesting within 100 feet of the intended person’s property line. Yes, this was and is really happening.

The response is to ban the First Amendment because a couple of protesters are harassing and or interfering with the life of Senate President Sweeney?

I’m sorry, you are an elected public official. Public, meaning you belong or are for the people. Moving to make it illegal for protesters to gather peacefully in front of your home only further fortifies the hypocrisy of New Jersey lawmakers and the hypocrisy of who you are Senator. Sweeney would have no problem putting a giant rat in front of a job site if the union was on strike. Sweeney also has no problem giving himself the right to keep arms by having a Concealed Carry Weapons permit, while blocking everyone else. More New Jersey corruption.

Spring into Action

The Machine of Recall Sweeney was in full swing. Everything was planned and there was a declaration of a “Day of Action”. Alexander Roubian and other advocates secured a location for what would be the kickoff event of the recall campaign. Being necessary to properly train and prepare people to collect signatures, over two months prior to the event, Roubian secured Total Turf, a local sports complex, for the rally point, renting the entire arena. Right before the “Day of Action” Roubian recounts that he was hoping to get some rest and recharge his batteries. Roubian posts the location of the rally on the internet and through emails and within an hour he gets a call from one of the owners of Total Turf, Jerry McGough;

“I just found out what you guys are doing”…and Roubian replies “But you’ve known since day one. I paid this in full almost three months ago. And now you’re telling me that you don’t want us to have this event at your location?” McGough from Total Turf continued “We have a lot of concerned parents messaging us about this tweet that went out.” Their conversation came to a head, Jerry from Total Turf said “Well, I don’t agree with what you are doing.” Roubian asked “What do you believe we are going to be doing?” McGough makes a business decision in his well thought out reply “I don’t know.”

Roubian scrambled and was able to secure a new location for the Day of Action meet up. They booked a banquet hall, ironically, called The Washington.

About conversations with management at the Washington, Roubian said “I gave full disclosure. We have this recall going on, we are going after this person. They said we do not discriminate. As long as everything is civilized and professional, you are more than welcome to hold it here.”

On Saturday June 27, 2015 over three hundred Second Amendment supporters met for The Day of Action. The meeting laid the foundation for what was going to commence. Alexander Roubian delivered a speech about the groups intentions and got everyone prepared for the day. Timothy Knight, one of the leaders of the Colorado recall election efforts also delivered a motivational speech. I asked Roubian about the day and he mentioned that the numbers just came in on the 9th of July and that they are very pleased with them. The work is not yet done. Roubian and the rest of the Recall Sweeney patriots still have more signatures to collect but they have a very solid foundation and strong momentum.

He made it clear that “We need soldiers, not philosophers. We all already know our rights and we need more people to knock on doors.”

Going Forward

Whatever may become of New Jersey, I think what the most important and compelling thing to take away from this is we are waging a multi front war and slowly are gaining ground. The rest of the country needs to know. The politicians in New Jersey have its citizens scared…they are intimidated. One of the activists told Roubian upon returning from gathering signatures on The Day of Action a story that sums up where we are at politically in New Jersey:

“This 85 year old World War II vet was scared and petrified to sign the petition in fear of retaliation from the Government and Sweeney that somebody will somehow take away his veteran benefits for signing. So here is a man that literally fought the Nazis to protect and save this country and he is now scared of his own government retaliating against him. Talk about irony. Eventually he signed but he had to be convinced.”

New Jersey Democrat Gun Banners Loretta Weinberg and Steve Sweeney

Many of the New Jeresy lawmakers do not care about us. Their position on the subject of firearms is blatantly clear, Roubian shares:

The work has just begun. With time and effort, New Jersey may join the other states in the Union as a free state. It is possible with patriots. It is possible with the hammering of case after case being dismissed by the NJ Supreme Court, or the SCOTUS, or district courts, eventually one has to stick. It is all very possible with cases like Peruta being waged on the other side of the country to swoop in and save the day. All of this is possible. Just like your freedoms…Just like its possible for your freedoms to be ripped from you. Look at the work that Bloomberg is doing on state wide levels…And with that, I’ll sign off with some words of wisdom from Anthony Colandro:

“When Governor Christie is gone, if we get a democratic Governor we’re screwed. We are going to have 80 gun bills come through in one year and they’re all going to get signed into law and they’re going to have zero net effect on crime, yet you’re going to see more law abiding citizens going to prison and they will not have a Governor like Christie who will pardon one a month…basically.

“We’re worried about one gun a month in New Jersey, we need one pardon a month. That’s the other thing, right after they passed one gun a month in New Jersey, there was talk of following the Massachusetts model of one gun every three months. Only four guns every year. Peeling the onion (of our freedoms) one layer at a time. New Jersey, we already have one gun every year for certain towns because we have to wait so long to get our permits, we have to beg for permission for our paperwork. Passaic takes a year. Passaic is going to end up getting sued….Remember what happens in New Jersey does not stay in New Jersey.”

About John Petrolino : BIO – John Petrolino is an NRA certified pistol, rifle and shotgun instructor. He lives under the bondage of New Jersey’s gun laws and hopes for his people’s deliverance.

Wisconsin –-(Ammoland.com)- While on active duty I was never involved in the military recruiting process. I attended instructor training school in the same building that the Air Force trained their new recruiters in.

Every day we got to hear the recruiters-in-training shout at the beginning of class “boy am I enthusiastic.” This was an artificial way to try and instill a sense of excitement and esprit de corps in the fledgling recruiters.

I just thought it was annoying, but we as instructors-in-training in the same building were expected to act and agree that it was a great idea and motivational tool. I have been told many times as I speak to people about the positive attributes of my big Air Force that I should have been a recruiter, even after I retired from active duty.

Fast forward seven years or so, I found myself volunteering at the Air Force recruiting office in Columbus, Mississippi.

The office was in one of those strip mall set-ups where all the branches of the Department of Defense co-located their recruiters, right next door to each other. There were some vandalism issues where the recruiter’s vehicles were damaged. The problem was the Air Force insisted that the recruiters leave their government (GOV) vehicles parked in the front of the recruiting building. Recruiters could not take their assigned GOV home with them at night. So if you had an early morning visit ninety miles away at a high school you had to drive your personal car into the recruiting station and pick up your GOV.

You just never knew when a recruiter might violate the GOV usage rules and stop at a store to buy a pack of gum along the way.

Military recruiting offices have been the target of protest and violence since the Civil War. It was very common to have armed sentries at the entrance of recruiting stations even into WWII time frame, but now we are a kinder, gentler nation.

One reason we can be kinder and gentler at the recruiter’s office is we do not have an active military draft functioning in the US. When we had a working draft, unhappy people would show up at the Air Force and Coast Guard recruiter’s office begrudgingly trying to join those branches of the armed services in order to avoid being forced into the Army. Everyone just knew if that happened you were going to die in the jungles of Vietnam. Recruiting offices were regular targets of violence during the Vietnam War. You can thank Soviet money for financing a lot of that violence, at home and abroad.

One of the first things I learned as a volunteer at the recruiting office in Columbus, MS was you did not talk about war, death, killing or being deployed to nasty places around the globe, especially when you were dealing with Air Force potential new recruits or their parents. You talked about all the great training and education opportunities the future Airman would receive.

There was the GI Bill that would be waiting for usage after that first enlistment and what a great deal it was, and by the way still is.

As a recruiter you talked about all the wonderful places a new Airman could be stationed, such as Hawaii, the beaches of California or beautiful Europe. Certainly not about “down-range” in the sand-box of the killing fields of the middle-east. We have a hard time getting qualified people in the US military. Too many drug problems, too many crime problems, too many baby problems, and to many unhealthy young American problems, that exacerbates the issue of getting qualified people into the armed services.

And of course you did not talk about guns.

The last thing the DoD recruiting industry wants is to have armed recruiters waiting at the door to let little Tommy or Tammy and their parents into the office to discuss joining the military. First off guns scare the public, but more importantly guns in the hands of the “troops” scare the leadership of the DoD.

To be quite honest our senior military leadership does not truly trust their own active duty people. Lord help the recruiting leadership should the DoD have to defend itself and the “optics” of a shooting incident, where the uniformed recruiter did the shooting and potential killing (in self defense) and was not the victim.

Chattanooga Recruiting Center Gun Free Sone Sticker

Memorials are easier and cheaper to build for a dead Airman than to deal with the political fall-out from a recruiter shooting an innocent victim who was passing by the strip mall as the armed military member was defending him/her self from a determined terrorist attack. Soldiers are supposed to die, not pregnant American women pushing a stroller past the recruiting station, again there is that bad optics.

Very little will change — I say again the senior military leadership is afraid to allow its own, vetted and expertly trained members to carry firearms.

There is a basic disconnect here, and it will continue to cost the lives of American service members. Open and concealed carry of firearms for all military members should not even be an issue. If they are not trustworthy in this nation then who is? No, we have to rely on old veterans in camouflage T-shirts, service branch connected ball caps and a determined expression on their face to guard our recruiters. These old veterans are greatly appreciated (I mean that most sincerely), but they should never have to stand-in-the- breach to stop terrorists.

They have already served their nation. Our senior leadership must wake-up, but the killing will happen again.

Major Van Harl USAF Ret / vanharl@aol.com

About Major Van Harl USAF Ret.:Major Van E. Harl USAF Ret., a career Police Officer in the U.S. Air Force was born in Burlington, Iowa, USA, in 1955. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School. A retired Colorado Ranger and currently is an Auxiliary Police Officer with the Cudahy PD in Milwaukee County, WI. His efforts now are directed at church campus safely and security training. He believes “evil hates organization.” vanharl@aol.com

Urge them to cut all funding for this ban — and to leave our seniors alone!

Millions of seniors could lose their guns, jeopardizing the ability of kids and grandchildren to inherit them

“I didn’t know the VA could take away your guns,” the young Marine said.

The harsh truth is that the Veterans Administration can do that — and they have been for years — to veterans who have committed no crimes whatsoever.

But it’s not just veterans who are on the chopping block. Obama’s latest gun grabbing scheme could be his cruelest and most dangerous to Americans.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Obama administration is pushing to “ban Social Security beneficiaries from owning guns” if they lack the mental capacity to “manage their own affairs” — a move that could affect millions of senior citizens.

Obama wants to strip gun rights from millions of seniors and vulnerable Americans who pose no threat to anyone, without due process of law.

Even the liberal Times is concerned, warning it denies guns to “numerous people who may just have a bad memory or difficulty balancing a checkbook.”

“Someone can be incapable of managing their funds but not be dangerous, violent or unsafe,” said Dr. Marc Rosen, a Yale psychiatrist who has studied how veterans with mental health problems manage their money. “They are very different determinations.”

Thank you for your service, now hand over your guns!

Steven Overman is a 30-year-old former Marine living in Virginia. He served his country with distinction in Iraq, where his Humvee hit a roadside bomb in 2007.

The blast resulted in post-traumatic stress disorder and a brain injury that weakened his memory and slowed his cognitive ability. He is 100 percent disabled. But he poses no threat to anyone. No court or doctor has ever found him to have any violent tendencies or difficulty managing a weapon.

In fact, target shooting is his only solace.

“It’s relaxing to me,” he said. “It’s a break from day-to-day life. It calms me down.”

The VA named his wife his fiduciary in 2012, given his difficulty in remembering payments and balancing a checkbook.

And that put him on Obama’s gun ban list.

“I didn’t know the VA could take away your guns,” Overman said.

It’s because federal law bans gun possession for anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective.” Of course, we’re not talking about real dangerous people. No, we’re talking about individuals who have simply had a fiduciary appointed for them.

Now, Obama wants to take a horrendous idea and apply it to senior citizens. Obama is literally snatching guns from our most vulnerable citizens, without due process of law.

Congress has a duty to stop this, so they need to hear from you right away.

Gun Owners of America (GOA) is a non-profit lobbying organization formed in 1975 to preserve and defend the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. GOA sees firearms ownership as a freedom issue. `The only no comprise gun lobby in Washington’ – Ron Paul

Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)-
In the wake of the theater shooting in Louisiana, the Chattanooga Jihadi attack on the U.S. military, and the church mass shooting in South Carolina, MSNBC might have thought that people would be against carrying guns in public. They sponsored an online poll. MSNBC wisely put guards in place to prevent multiple votes from individuals. If they thought that people desired more gun control, they were wrong.

At the time of this article, they had received 234 thousand votes. I am sure that they appreciate the clicks, but given their editorial stance in favor of any restrictions on the second amendment, anywhere, anytime, I suspect that they were surprised. Here is the poll question and the possible responses.

Do you think people should be allowed to carry guns in public?

1. Yes! The Second Amendment guarantees it. 91%

2. No, it’s too dangerous. 5%

3. Only for self defense. 4%

Notice that the total in favor of people carrying guns in public is 95%.

It is likely that the MSNBC policy of allowing only one vote per person is contributing to the lopsided result. Second Amendment Supporters outnumber disarmists many times over. The ratio may be as high as 20 to 1.

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- A year and a half ago, I wrote about the illegal “No Weapons” signs at rest stops in Alabama. The Alabama Department of Transportation doubled down and declared the signs legal … because. Yesterday afternoon, Friday, the 24th of July, 2015, Governor Bentley stepped up to the plate and ordered the signs taken down. From yellowhammernews.com reporting the Governor’s tweet:

I have ordered the AL Department of Transportation to remove signs banning weapons at all Alabama rest stops to comply with state law.

Good for the Governor. He knows how to count. He is also keeping his campaign promises from 2010:

I will defend Alabama’s sovereignty from federal encroachment, consistent with the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution.

I will protect each Alabamian’s right to legally purchase, own, carry and use firearms.

I will ensure the state government does not hinder city and county government operations.

The Second Amendment clearly grants every American the right to own firearms. As Governor I will protect each Alabamian’s right to legally purchase, own, carry, and use firearms.

Governor Bentley is a Republican.

c2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included. Link to Gun Watch

About Dean Weingarten;

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

California – -(Ammoland.com)- Some people still believe gun-prohibition works. That fading idea is like a sick old man on life support. It takes more and more effort simply to keep that fading fantasy alive.

They try. These anti-rights lobbyists pump out a heartbeat of press releases paid for with a billionaire’s money. Yes, I mean Bloomberg, as well as the Joyce, Tides and Heinz foundations.

Here is an example. The murders at the Charleston, South Carolina church were in a gun free zone. The billionaires who wants you disarmed said we need more background checks.. while admitting the murderer passed his firearms owner background check.

Well, duhh.

A crazed gunman attacked a Dallas, Texas police station. The Bloomberg groups blamed a new law allowing open carry of firearms. They forgot to mention that the open carry law does not go into effect until next year.

Oops.

Judging these examples, it isn’t easy selling media spin.. even if you have millions of dollars to generate press releases. I couldn’t do it.

The dying idea of gun-prohibition has given us failure after failure. Each failure demands a successively larger media campaign to keep the gun-prohibition fantasy alive. It becomes harder and harder to sell gun-prohibition to anyone except the liberal medial. The media spin would be funny except for the number of disarmed victims.

Look for the media to parrot the press release after the next attack in a gun free zone.*

(Told you so. RM)

The idea of gun-prohibition is fading fast. The number of concealed carry permits in the US more than doubled since President Obama was elected. Last year the number of permits grew by a record 15%. The murder rate fell by 25 percent during that same period showing that honest gun owners don’t cause crime. Today, the national average is that one out of 19 adults has a permit to carry, and in five states the licensed carry rate is more than one in ten adults.

The average gun owner looks like the average American. Since 2007, permits for women have increased by 270% while permits have only grown by 156% for men. Evidence suggests that permit holding by minorities is increasing more than twice as fast as for whites.

Bloomberg will have to pump a few more millions into the dead idea of gun-prohibition.

Good riddance to blood money!

*I originally thought I’d hold this article, but then MDA gave me the quote I wanted. The murderer in Louisiana was a drifter with a long criminal history.. who got a gun anyway. MDA said we need more gun control. (head desk)
~_~_

About Rob Morse: By day, Rob Morse works as a mild mannered engineer for a Southern California defense contractor. By night he writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily and on his SlowFacts blog. He is an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- “If God does not exist, then everything is permissible.”

Ivan Karamazov’s insight came to mind while watching the video of Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood describe, as she sipped wine and tasted a salad, how she harvests the organs of aborted babies for sale to select customers.

“Yesterday was the first time … people wanted lungs,” said Nucatola, “Some people want lower extremities, too, which, that’s simple. …

“I’d say a lot of people want liver. … We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”

Nucatola is describing how an unborn baby should be killed and cut up to preserve its most valuable organs for sale by its butchers.

Welcome to God’s Country, 2015.

Planned Parenthood’s image — a progressive organization that provides free birth control to women who seek to space pregnancies as they plan their families — will not easily survive these tapes.

For Nucatola sounds as though she were reading from a film script about a 1940s clinic in Nazi Germany devoted to the disposal of “useless eaters” in the Third Reich.

Defenders of Planned Parenthood argue that those who taped Nucatola did so surreptitiously, and they misrepresented themselves as buyers from a human biologics company. Moreover, the tapes were deceptively edited and the women undergoing abortions had agreed to donate the organs of their dead fetuses for biomedical research.

Perhaps. But even if all of that is true, the tapes have thrown the “pro-abortion rights” movement in America onto the defensive and brought calls for complete Congressional defunding of a Planned Parenthood that receives $500 million yearly from taxpayers.

Set aside the legality of what Nucatola describes. Do Americans want hundreds of millions of tax dollars provided to an organization that harvests and sells the body parts of aborted babies as a potentially lucrative sideline business? Do Americans want to be associated in any way with an organization with the moral mindset exhibited by Nucatola?

That Americans were stunned by those tapes is undeniable. People are not faking their moral revulsion. Indeed, “pro-abortion rights” Democrats are hiding in the weeds because they rightly sense that the disgust is widespread and genuine.

Yet there are questions raised by what these tapes reveal that apply to all of us.

Were we really in the dark? Were we unaware that 55 million unborn have been killed since Roe, many by such crushing methods as described by Nucatola?

Is the Black Lives Matter movement unaware that the execution rate of babies in the womb is highest among African-American women? However many black men or boys are killed in clashes with cops each year, it is not one-tenth of 1 percent of the black babies aborted in the USA?

Did we think that these abortions were almost all painless, like some sick pet being put to sleep, euthanized? Did we not know that the abortionist stabs the baby in the womb, or tears it to pieces coming out? And the more developed the baby, the greater the pain and the suffering and the bloodier the inescapable death?

But if one believes an unborn baby is not a human being, not a human life, why object to selling its body parts?

Trash haulers and garbage men find uses for what they pick up. Scrap metal collectors find folks who want to buy it. Conservation they call it. Why would we think that abortionists, who regard fetuses as human tissue, not human beings, were any different?

We have long known and praised family members of the victims in auto accidents who volunteer the organs of their loved ones to save or extend the lives of others.

What makes this tape so different, so appalling, is that, at some level, there a sense in all of us, which ideological indoctrination cannot wholly suppress, that, morally, something terrible is happening here.

Listening to that Planned Parenthood woman discourse casually on the hearts, livers, lungs and lower extremities, we know something else. While the women undergoing the abortions at Planned Parenthood may have volunteered those body parts, the butchered children had no say in the decision to be torn to pieces and have their organs put up for sale to a laboratory that was the highest bidder.

Speaking after the fall of France, at the beginning of the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill said, “But if we fail, then the whole world … including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”

Those phrases, “perverted science,” and “a new Dark Age,” do they not fairly describe our future if the views and values of Nucatola’s Planned Parenthood are the future of America and her people?

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- The professional hand-wringers are freaking out over Donald Trump’s straight talk while displaying abysmal indifference to the deserved targets of Trump’s charges.

The United States is incinerating, but all they can think about is Trump’s heated rhetoric.

Trump is resonating because, as a presidential candidate, he is giving public voice to many of the concerns that have Americans beside themselves.

Some commentators have called attention to these issues for years, but it’s different when a candidate does it, especially a Republican candidate.

Democratic candidates have no fear of making controversial statements or even of taking extreme positions, because the liberal media agree with them and will avoid putting them in a bad light. But Republicans know that the media will exploit any opportunity to vilify them.

Republicans also feel pressure from the GOP establishment to pull their punches — not to say anything that would make them look too conservative, too extreme, too uncaring, too out of step with the popular culture.

“Don’t sound judgmental. Moderate your words. Be respectful toward President Obama. And above all, don’t sound like one of those crazies.”

Then Donald Trump comes along and breaks all the rules. He is not beholden to anyone for funding, and he’s not a string puppet for any feckless political consultants.

The media are going bonkers, but it’s not because Trump sometimes uses insulting terms. Their real beef with him is that he is saying things on policy that they don’t want to hear.

The GOP political class is even more beside itself, doing everything it can to diminish him and cast him as an outsider. “Does he not realize what damage he is doing to our brand?” these insiders fret. The dirty little irony is that they are the ones who have damaged the Republican brand.

Say what you will about Democrats, but at least they stand for something and they act like the liberals they are. Republicans often talk a good game — good enough, in fact, to win the congressional elections in a landslide in 2010 and 2014 — but they routinely fail to deliver.

They whine that even with a majority in both houses, they can’t do anything to stop Obama and that if they were to try anything too bold, they’d be viewed as extreme and lose the next election.

Neither of those excuses is entirely true, and the increasingly frustrated not-much-longer-silent majority is done with their squishiness. Their job is not to get along with Obama. It is not to pass bipartisan legislation that always plays into Obama’s hands. It is not to pass cutesy bills, such as the Corker bill, that pretend to impede Obama’s disastrous agenda but actually facilitate it.

People are horrified and furious that Obama is destroying America at an ever-accelerating pace and that our cultural rot proceeds apace. They are tired of hearing excuses and empty promises from Republicans.

Trump is having none of it, and he is calling out Obama and the Republicans who are trying to tone him down — and it’s abundantly refreshing.

Meanwhile, the media continue to make Trump’s statements the issue instead of Obama’s daily — and I mean daily — outrages.

Are they focusing on Obama’s side deals with Iran to freeze the United States out of inspections and his bypassing of the Corker bill’s requirements that he report those to Congress?

How about his alleged deal to defend Iran’s nuke sites against attack, even from Israel?

His new rule that immigrants applying for legal citizenship no longer have to swear they will take up arms to defend the United States should they have any kind of religious objection to doing so?

No matter how much it may appear otherwise to us now, this country is not going under without a fight, and the silent majority is not going to tolerate cowardice from Republicans much longer. That Trump is doing so well is not an indication that there are a bunch of crazies on the right. It’s proof that people are at their wits’ end — and they’re not going to take it anymore. If GOP honchos were to try to bar Trump from the debates, there would be major hell to pay. Surely, they won’t be that foolish.

Many of us Reagan conservatives have told you for years that the key to Republican victory is not for GOP candidates to emulate liberals or appeal to some mysterious group of “independents.”

It is to clearly and authentically articulate Reagan conservatism — without apology.

Notably, it is not just Donald Trump who is speaking out. Sen. Ted Cruz is fearlessly and brilliantly articulating mainstream conservatism, and he’s pulling no punches. The same is true of some of the other candidates. Cruz and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina are both putting on clinics on how to deal with media interviews — refusing to cede the narrative and hitting back hard against Democratic extremism.

This may very well be a turning point in our history and in the conservative movement. Obama has become more arrogant, defiant and excessive with each successive political victory and every Republican abdication. But he might just have finally done enough to awaken the majority of Americans who still love the country for which he is demonstrating unbridled contempt.

Let’s not give up on America just yet. The sleeping giant may have emerged from its coma. We still have people fighting for us and for America. They are fighting for things just a tad bit more important than worrying about whether this or that GOP candidate is sounding rude or extreme or how much leg Caitlyn Jenner is showing with her newest dress.

]]>http://www.ammoland.com/2015/07/american-sleeping-giant/feed/19american-sleeping-giantAmerican Sleeping Giant, Ben Garrison , http://www.grrrgraphics.com/David-LimbaughDavid LimbaughNRA-Supported Omnibus Bill Passes Out of Committee in North Carolinahttp://www.ammoland.com/2015/07/nra-supported-omnibus-bill-passes-out-of-committee-in-north-carolina/
http://www.ammoland.com/2015/07/nra-supported-omnibus-bill-passes-out-of-committee-in-north-carolina/#commentsThu, 23 Jul 2015 19:49:35 +0000http://www.ammoland.com/?p=226157Please contact your state Senator and urge her or him to support HB 562 when it reaches the full Senate!NRA-ILANRA – Institute for Legislative Action

Fairfax, VA -(AmmoLand.com)- House Bill 562, the NRA-supported omnibus pro-gun reform bill, is rapidly working its way through the North Carolina Senate.

Today, the bill passed out of the Senate II Committee on a voice vote with no further changes. The bill could be heard by the full state Senate as early as today.

As previously reported, this legislation makes several important changes to North Carolina gun laws, including:

Requiring the chief law enforcement officer (CLEO) of a jurisdiction to certify the transfer or making of a firearm in a timely manner.

Clarifying the exemption for keeping a firearm in a vehicle by a person with a valid Concealed Handgun Permit while the vehicle is on the property of a public school.

Establishing an affirmative defense for an individual in certain situations where he or she uses a firearm on prohibited school property “in response to a threatening situation in which deadly force was justified…”

Improving the existing Range Protection Law, which would help to protect established shooting ranges from new local ordinances designed to shut them down.

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

NEWTOWN, Conn –-(Ammoland.com)- Light Heavyweight World Champion Sergey Kovalev defends his title against Nadjib Mohammedi live Saturday, July 25, on HBO.

The Russian fighter has fought his way to the top with notable victories over former light heavyweight world champions Gabriel Campillo, Nathan Cleverly, Bernard Hopkins and Jean Pascal. Kovalev’s latest fight against Pascal pulled in 1.2 million viewers on HBO.

Now, as he prepares for his biggest fight to-date, and first in Las Vegas, his sponsors have told NSSF that HBO is demanding Kovalev remove the logo of Tulammo USA, a Round Rock, Texas-based ammo manufacturing company, from his boxing trunks.

Kovalev has not made a public response, but his relationship with the company is a close one. The fighter appeared at Tulammo’s SHOT Show booth this past January.

This isn’t the first time a network has taken a punch at gun companies. Last year, Daniel Defense wasn’t allowed to purchase advertisement time during the Super Bowl despite complying with NFL policies. And again in 2012 FOX Sports Media Group banned advertisements featuring firearms and ammunition from its coverage of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) events.

Now, HBO seems to have decided to use the sporting arena as stage for a political debate.

Tulammo

TV networks are certainly free to decide what they broadcast, but the typical daily HBO fare of murder, mayhem and the glorified misuse of firearms suggests a certain degree of hypocrisy in HBO’s reported decision to ban the simple logo of a company that manufactures ammunition. It is strange that a media company such as HBO has decided to infringe on the First Amendment rights of the boxer and Tulammo by censoring what can be printed on a pair of trunks. The network is known for sometimes-violent programming such as True Detective, The Wire and The Sopranos (which coincidently featured a handgun in its logo).

Would HBO have the same inclination to censor any of their show writers or their famous talking head Bill Maher. Would they dare censor their content for political reasons?

In the fight of HBO vs. Tulammo we won’t know the victor until Kovalev appears Saturday night. But a decision by HBO to ban advertisements for lawful products is, in boxing terms, ‘a low blow,’ and we suggest that the network just as soon ‘throw in the towel.’

About NSSF The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of more than 6,000 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers. For more information, log on to www.nssf.org.

It would appear, however, that this critical legislative reform is now poised to move. Several pro-gun Republican Senators have informed NRA that HB 562 will begin to move this week.

This legislation makes several important changes to North Carolina gun laws, including:

Requiring the chief law enforcement officer (CLEO) of a jurisdiction to certify the transfer or making of a firearm in a timely manner.

Clarifying the exemption for keeping a firearm in a vehicle by a person with a valid Concealed Handgun Permit while the vehicle is on the property of a public school.

Establishing an affirmative defense for an individual in certain situations where he or she uses a firearm on prohibited school property “in response to a threatening situation in which deadly force was justified…”

Improving the existing Range Protection Law, which would help to protect established shooting ranges from new local ordinances designed to shut them down.

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Evidence now suggests that at least one heroic Marine, armed with a personally-owned handgun (courageously and contemptuously ignoring stupid Pentagon “rules”) returned the heavily-armed terrorist’s fire at the Chattanooga Reserve Center, doubtless preventing an even bigger massacre.

“The FBI says a military service member opened fire on the Chattanooga gunman after he crashed through the gates of a military facility there.

Ed Reinhold, the FBI’s special agent in charge in Knoxville, said during a news conference Wednesday that a service member fired at the shooter after he crashed his rented, silver Mustang convertible through the gates of a joint Marine-Navy facility.” – WATE.com

He must be praised effusively by the public, and by all veterans!

Predictably, the leftist media is trying desperately to cover-up this story, adhering to their unwritten rule that privately-owned guns are never to be portrayed in a positive manner. They don’t want these facts known, so they pretend it didn’t happen. These same sleazy DNC propagandists, masquerading as “journalists,” willfully covered-up WJC’s endless extramarital affairs.

Under BHO-era appointees, the Pentagon is still refusing even to consider arming any Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, nor Airmen, regardless of rank. Conversely, their contemptible “solution” to this repeatidly-demonstrated security gap is to order servicemen not to wear uniforms, even when on recruiting duty, and to “pull down the window shades.”

Disgusting cowards! Sounds like surrender to me.

Under their faltering “leadership,” we won’t have long to wait until the next successful attack on our ever-unarmed troops, within CONUS.

It is obvious to me that safety of our troops does not enjoy a high level of priority in the BHO Administration, nor among his appointees, even those in uniform!

On the bright side, several courageous Republican governors have now ordered the arming a certain National Guardsmen. Not a single Democrat among them. I wish I were surprised!

A universal (and fatal) trait, unfailing infecting all liberals, is a personal vanity so extreme that it altogether prevents them from ever admitting they’re wrong, nor even believing they are capable of being wrong. They perpetually defend and perpetuate their errors as if they were protecting their inheritance!

“A man should never be ashamed to admit that he has been wrong, which is but saying that he is wiser today than yesterday.” ~ Jonathan Swift

/John

About John Farnam & Defense Training International, Inc
As a defensive weapons and tactics instructor John Farnam will urge you, based on your own beliefs, to make up your mind in advance as to what you would do when faced with an imminent and unlawful lethal threat. You should, of course, also decide what preparations you should make in advance, if any. Defense Training International wants to make sure that their students fully understand the physical, legal, psychological, and societal consequences of their actions or inactions.

It is our duty to make you aware of certain unpleasant physical realities intrinsic to the Planet Earth. Mr Farnam is happy to be your counselor and advisor. Visit: www.defense-training.com